So This Is Love
by Kaci Brianna
Summary: Cloud is an unexpected father of a ten year old blonde named Roxas. Leon is the homeless older brother of a brunette named Sora. Axel, Demyx, and Riku are three best friends who grew up with each other to find and force themselves into Cloud's life, and incidentally Roxas's as well. You could say Zexion is simply along for the ride. Cleon, AkuRoku, RiSo, Zemyx, Seiner. UNFINISHED.
1. 1) Cloud

**A/N**:

This is roughly inspired by a few fics, though the main is Lady Karai's "_Come Home_", in that each chapter will be a different character's point of view, and each character will have their own miniature story within this one big monstrosity. Chapter 1: Cloud's point of view. Chapter 2: Leon's point of view. I think chapter 3 is Roxas's, but I don't feel like double checking just yet. So on and so forth, and I'm sure you get the gist.

I want it said, done, and out of the way real quick: I already, as of August, 2, 2013 at 8:49pm, already have 64 pages of this fanfiction written and 37707 words. I'm saying this so you guys know that, at least for now, there shouldn't be outrageously long waits in between updates. However, as I _am_ still writing this, I may tweak a few things in this chapter (really the first two chapters, but that one isn't up yet so whatever), in which case if you decide to stick around to read this beast of a fanfiction it may be in your best interest to make keep that in mind. I think I'm done with changing my basic facts, and I'll just mold the fine print to match what's already written, but you never know, right?

**PAIRINGS**: The ships that I'm 100% sure of, the ones I know for a fact I'm writing into this story, include: Cloud and Leon; Sora and Riku; Axel and Roxas; Seifer and Hayner; Zexion and Demyx. I may throw in a pairing in here and there, but those are my main victims.

**DISCLAIMER**: No, I don't own anything in this fic save the plot itself and maybe a few made up scenery things and whatnot because really, we never see much of the towns in Kingdom Hearts, and therefore false information is required. Square Enix owns all Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy characters that may or may not pop in and out of this monstrosity of a fic. For the (probably few) Disney characters or references, Disney owns those, too.

**FINAL NOTE**: This is the first (and hopefully last) time there will be an a/n in the beginning of a chapter. This way, you guys can just continue on with the fic and read my ramblings at the very end.

* * *

It was a normal Monday morning. I woke up to the noises of Zexion moving around in the other kitchen, presumably making breakfast for the both of us. I took a quick shower, long enough to wash my hair and body, and then I got out to walk back to my room and put on clean boxers but put my pajama pants back on. I shut the light off, left the room, and joined Zexion in the kitchen, where he told me that the trash needed to be taken out.

I grabbed the bag, took it out of the can, tied it at the top, and made my way towards the back door where our trash bins were. I yelled at him for his laziness and his hatred of touching trash that resulted in my always taking out the garbage, except on the rare occasion that a friend (namely Demyx) was over and offered. On my way back to the bins, I heard the doorbell ring and told him to answer it while I took care of the trash. I heard his footsteps echoing through the small apartment and the front door being pushed open. A woman's voice sounded, seeming slightly unsure.

"Does a man named Cloud Strife live here? He looks like this." Silence for a moment, in which the woman must have flashed a picture to my housemate, and then said housemate spoke.

"He does live here. If you'd like to come in, he's only taking out the trash."

My curiosity got the better of me at that moment. I didn't go back to the kitchen, instead heading straight for the living room—although the rooms weren't blocked off from one another except by one counter.

I froze upon seeing the tall, thin figure of the brunette haired woman I thought I'd never see again, and a small, blonde-haired kid who clutched her hand.

"Cloud?" she asked tentatively.

I stared at the woman, saying nothing. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Cloud, we need to talk."

My eyes darted to the boy, who had hair the same exact colour as my own and eyes the same shade of blue. Then my eyes met the woman's, and I cleared my throat. My throat seemed tight and I glanced at Zexion, who was staring from his spot in the doorway.

"Aerith," I said with my eyes firmly planted on her light green ones. "Aerith Gainsborough, this is my housemate, Zexion Ienzo. Zexion, this is Aerith."

"And who is the child?" my housemate asked curiously.

Aerith's eyes looked towards the boy and she smiled. He appeared to have tried to smile in return, but it didn't quote reach his eyes nor was it at all convincing.

"This is Roxas," she told my roommate, who walked back towards the living room. "This is Roxas Gainsborough-Strife."

"'Strife'?" my slate-haired friend questioned politely. "Are you implying he's a younger sibling to Cloud, or are you implying…?"

Aerith looked at me, her head nodding fractionally. Not wavering my view form Aerith's eyes, I answered Zexion, "Roxas is our son.

"Zexion, if you'd like to go say hello to Demyx for me, it would be appreciated," I told the man. Cobalt eyes wide, he nodded and grabbed his keys, offering to Aerith a quick and sincere, "I apologize, Ms. Gainsborough, but I must be off. I assume you two have much to discuss. Roxas." He nodded towards the small boy, who only looked at him as he left.

She waved halfheartedly as Zexion left, and then looked at me again. She sighed. "May I sit?" she asked, and I quickly nodded, assuring her she could make herself at home.

"I'm going to go change," I said as she and the boy sat on the couch. She looked at me once more, likely taking note of my pajama bottoms and nothing else. She probably was comparing my appearance now to that of what I looked like last time she'd seen me, ten years prior, though the only significant difference now was my general build had changed and I'd achieved muscles through working at Cid's repair shop for nearly three years.

Then again, I couldn't help but look her over, too. She hasn't gotten any taller. She looked as delicate as she had when we were in high school, but her soft green eyes held as much compassion as they had before. She looked considerably thinner than I'd last seen her, though. She was pale and her bones were clearly visible through her skin.

I quickly walked to my bedroom and pulled on the first articles of clothing I found: navy blue jeans and a darker blue elbow-length shirt. I pulled my boots on over my feet, not knowing if she would want to go anywhere. Still, better safe than sorry, I thought, standing up and grabbing the dark mint-coloured scarf given to me as a Christmas present from Zexion and Demyx, his long-time boyfriend.

I walked quietly in the hallway and heard Aerith talking to the boy faintly. "It'll be alright, Sweetie. He's a good man; he always has been."

"Then why didn't he stay with you?" I heard him ask, and I was shocked for a moment to hear how mature he sounded until I realized the boy was likely nearing his middle-school years.

"He was scared," she said quietly. "He never had a family when I knew him. He'd been on his own his whole life. When I told him I was going to have you, he got scared."

The boy was quiet, and then he said, "Do you think he's still scared?"

Aerith chuckled and I could hear a small smile in her kind, calming voice. "I think he'll always be scared, deep down, but he's older now and he's smarter than he was."

The boy frowned and looked over Aerith's shoulder, his eyes meeting mine as I stood in the doorway, my arms crossed over my chest. Wondering what he was looking at, she turned around and saw me standing there.

I dropped my arms and walked towards the boy as calmly as I could, trying to ignore the pounding in my chest, because this was _my_ ten year old son. I took a seat in the chair on either side of them. He looked at me, his eyes raking over my hair, eyes, skin, and general appearance before he said anything else.

"Are you still scared about being a dad?"

I looked him in the eyes and shrugged. "I'm not going to lie, kid. The idea of being a dad scared me more than anything else, and it still does. I don't know anything about them except what I've seen in movies."

"Me, too," he said, his eyes unblinkingly staring into mine.

I glanced at Aerith and saw her eyes fill with hesitation. "Cloud, we need to talk. I wouldn't have come and bothered you, but I have no choice at this point."

She looked at the boy, as if trying to gather some kind of strength she didn't have. Then she nodded and returned her eyes to me.

Her voice was shaking when she said, "Cloud, I'm dying."

For a moment, I didn't understand. If she was dying, why did she come here, to my home, to tell me? After spending ten years away from her, it seemed ridiculous that she would come and tell me this.

And then it dawned on me, and my eyes looked at the blonde boy to my left. He held his hands together in his lap and he stared at them intently. This wasn't news to him. Aerith's eyes held mine when I returned my gaze to hers.

"I have a disease. The name is way too long and difficult to pronounce as it is, so please don't ask me. It's not something that can be passed to children. I've already had him checked and double-checked. I have maybe two months left. It's going to affect my physical and my mental states, and I don't want Roxas to have to see it when it gets bad." She looked down and picked at her cuticles, something I remember she did when she was nervous or scared.

She looked back up at me and said quietly, "I know you, Cloud. It may have been ten years since we've seen each other, but you're a good man and that hasn't changed. You didn't want to have to be a father at seventeen years old and I understand that. You weren't ready. Neither was I, honestly, but all I knew was I didn't want to get rid of him and I didn't want to give him away. I didn't have much of a choice, but you did, and you weren't ready. I understand. You were still a kid.

"But you need to hear me out. You know what the foster system is like, and I don't have anyone else he can live with. There's no one I trust more than you to take care of him. You're his biological father, and you're more mature than you were ten years ago. I know this is sudden, but please, Cloud," she begged. "I can't let him go into the foster system."

I looked into her grass coloured eyes—different from the sky-blue colour of her son's eyes—and stifled a deep exhale. I stood and motioned for her to follow, and she did without hesitation, telling the boy to sit there. I walked into the hallway, further away from where I previously stood but still close enough to see the kid.

She appeared even paler in the dim lighting of the hallway, where the sparse lighting highlighted where her bones were visible through her skin. I looked down at her, at her wide eyes and thin figure, and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Aerith, please tell me you didn't come here and expect me to… I don't know, embrace the two of you in my arms and let him live here, no questions asked? Did you think I'd drop everything I have for the both of you… for the kid? I have something solid here. I have a good job, and I'm taking classes at the local college. How am I supposed to balance having a ten year old son when I haven't even told the man I share a house with anything prior to living here?"

She shook her head. "I know you have a life here, Cloud. I know you have a good thing going here. I hired a PI to find you, and you've got a steady income, good schools, a spare bedroom, and access to everything a child needs to thrive." Her eyes hardened slightly and she struggled to keep her voice quiet. "I love Roxas more than anything in this world. I can't imagine _not_ having him in my life, but I don't want him to have to see me when I won't even be able to remember how to count my fingers, let alone remember who my own son is."

I ran a hand through my hair and took a deep breath. "It isn't that I wouldn't take care of him; you know that," I told her, and some of the tenseness in her shoulders eased. "He's my son as much as yours, biologically speaking, but you're wrong if you think I'm ready enough now to try and raise a kid." I tried to find the right words, to explain what I was thinking, but I found nothing.

Instead, she smiled sadly. "How do you think I felt?" she asked gently. "It was only a week after my seventeenth birthday that he was born. I was seventeen years old and dealing with a child that my parents didn't want me having. I hardly knew how to take care of myself. The only reason I got through was because of instinct and help from Tifa and her mom." She chuckled nervously. "At least you don't have to deal with changing diapers and all. I got you through the hard part."

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. "That's not what I mean," I said. I looked to the ceiling and sighed. "I've lived here for ten years. I've got a job. I've got a house. I've got classes. I never once mentioned to any living soul in this town that I had a kid. What am I going to tell people when they meet him? 'This is my ten year old son that showed up a week ago because his mother dropped him off so he wouldn't see her deteriorate'?"

She balled her fists at her sides and she looked me directly in the eyes. "Cloud Strife, I'm not dropping him here so you can suffer and deal with him on your own. I'm here with Roxas because you should know your son before I get worse, so that you'll be able to tell me once you've had time to think it through if you want to raise him when I die." Her eyes didn't leave mine as she spoke her unabashed words.

"So you only came today with him to tell me that you're dying, and you want me to raise him from now on, but only if I want to?" I asked her confusedly.

"_Yes_," she said tiredly. "I was going to give you my number and ask for yours, and next week, I was going to call you and ask if you wanted to go through with it. _Then_ you can explain to your employers or friends or whoever the situation before he gets here, because it's a day long drive to get here from home, not to mention packing. If you don't want to take care of him, I can put him through foster care, but I don't want him to have to go through that, and I doubt you do, either, considering you went through it."

I looked through the hallway at the blonde headed boy. He was glancing around the room, occasionally getting up and looking at some of the pictures on the shelves, or glancing through some of Zexion's bookshelves, or through the music and stereo collection on the far wall, courtesy of Demyx coming over as often as he did and his love for all genres of music.

"Give me time to think about it, please," I said to the brunette woman, and she nodded. We walked back towards the living room, where the boy was once again looking at the books.

"Roxas?" his mother said, and he looked at her with a question on his face, as if saying '_Yes, mom_?'

Aerith looked at him and smiled. "What do you want to do today?"

His eyes brightened, and the boy asked with a flush in his cheeks, "Can we get sea salt ice cream?"

She looked at me and shook her head, a smile on her face. "They're these ice cream popsicles he gets back home. I don't know what they're made of, but he's addicted to them. Do they have them here?"

I shrugged, resisting the urge to smile at the kid. "Do you want to find out, Roxas?"

He grinned, joining me by my side. Aerith walked in front of us outside the house, and I grabbed my cell phone just before leaving and locking the doors behind me.

* * *

It was a month later, and Roxas was officially moving in with Zexion and me. He was on his way already, one of Aerith's friends driving him as she already was getting sicker. However, that meant I needed to get the spare bedroom cleaned out, which meant I required spare hands. Excluding Zexion because he lived with me, the house was filled with people going in and out, namely Demyx, Riku, and Axel-and because the other two were rarely seen without my roommate's boyfriend who rarely left the house himself, it seemed inevitable that they would be the ones to help. Demyx was always in and out of the house, usually spending one night a week over with Zexion, while Riku and Axel were friends of Demyx and therefore spent most of their time with him.

"Cloud, what is all this junk?" nineteen year old Axel complained, hauling yet another box off the floor and down the hall. "Did you box bricks and then forget about them?" he yelled.

"This is all the stuff I brought from before I lived here. I just haven't had the chance to sort through it yet," I told the red-head.

Zexion, from his seat on the bed—he was going through a few of the smaller boxes with Demyx—looked at me with narrowed eyes. "You've lived here for ten years, Cloud," he said.

I shrugged. "I procrastinate?" I offered, grabbing another box and hauling it away.

Riku gave a bark of laughter. "More like you're just a packrat," he laughed. He deposited the box in the designated area and walked back with me to the room. "By the way, why are we helping you clean out your spare room?"

Axel looked at me, his thin eyebrows knitting together. "Yeah, it doesn't make sense. If you're _such _a procrastinator, why are you doing it now?"

I sighed, glancing at Zexion and Demyx, who were the only two who knew about Roxas. Demyx grinned but remained silent, continuing to go through the boxes.

It wasn't that I didn't want my friends to know what was happening; it was more so the fact that every time I began to tell them, I was interrupted by something. I looked at the guys and I sighed. "I need to tell you guys something, but you can't freak out, alright?"

Axel scoffed, while Riku nodded with a roll of his eyes at Axel.

With a glance at Demyx and Zexion, I said hesitantly, "My... son is coming to live with us."

I'm pretty sure that the both of them would've done a spit-take, had they been drinking anything. Demyx laughed aloud at the purpling colour of Axel's face. Riku looked at me as though I'd grown three extra heads.

I looked up at the ceiling and told the two, "When I was seventeen, I got my girlfriend pregnant, and then I skipped town. A few weeks ago, she turned up at my doorstep with our son, whose name is Roxas, asking if I could raise him because she would be unable to do so anymore."

Axel looked at the grinning face of Demyx and the knowing look Zexion had. "You two knew?"

Zexion looked rudely at Axel, his dark eyes narrowed. "I was the one who opened the door when she came to the house, you dimwit, and if you think I wouldn't tell Demyx, considering he partially lives here and he and I are in a relationship, you're stupider than you appear."

Riku quickly looked at the two of them—Zexion who was bristling with anger and Axel who was gearing up to tell Zexion exactly what was on his mind—and he looked at me, saying in a voice louder than what was necessary in an attempt to diffuse the potential fight, "So you have a son that you've neglected to inform us about in your years of knowing us?"

I ran a hand through my hair and nodded, taking a break from picking up and moving boxes to look at the people before me. "Yeah, basically, and he's a miniature me. I mean, he looks like me. Almost _exactly_ like me, actually," I said quietly. "Aerith—his mom, I mean—is sick and can't take care of him anymore. She asked me to, because it was either me or foster care, and he's coming over today to live with Zex and me."

"What's he like?" Riku asked.

I frowned, realizing I didn't know the answer to that question. "All I know," I said, "is that he's quiet and really likes some kind of salty ice cream, which we couldn't find here."

Axel looked at me with wide eyes. "Sea salt ice cream?" he said. "There's a place by the hospital that sells it! It isn't an ice cream store, though, so that's probably why you didn't know where it was. Sea salt ice cream is the best," he told me.

"Well, I guess I'll take him for some ice cream when he gets here, if it isn't too late." Looking at my watch, I sighed. "It probably will be, though. It's almost eight."

Demyx, who continued going through a few of the boxes, suddenly looked at me. "Hey, Cloud?" he said. "Who's this?"

I walked to his side and he pointed to a picture of me and a younger Aerith, from prom our senior year. We went together and even won Prom King and Queen. "That's Aerith, his mom," I said. Demyx looked at the picture before handing it to Riku and Axel, who held their hands out for it.

Only moments later, there was a soft knocking on the front door. Axel jumped up and ran to answer it, and I heaved a sigh as I followed slowly behind. I made it to the door just as Axel sucked in a breath to call me. Sticking my hand over his mouth, I looked at the door and inhaled sharply as I looked at the woman before me.

"Tifa?" I asked, looking at the auburn haired woman with wide eyes. She smiled and reached forward for a hug, embracing me warmly. Close behind her was Roxas, who was wearing what appeared to be pajamas, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Hey, Roxas," I said to the blonde, but he only mumbled a nearly-silent greeting, his eyes shutting as he stood.

Tifa placed a hand on his back. "He couldn't sleep last night," she said quietly. "He wanted to see Aer, but she didn't want him to see her…. She's getting worse…." Tifa told me. "So he didn't sleep last night in protest for not being able to see her, and he refused to sleep on the ride over because he wanted to be awake to see the town."

I frowned at the blonde boy who was swaying on his feet. I knelt down and said, "Roxas, I'm gonna pick you up and take you to bed, okay? But if you don't want me to and you just want to walk, you have to reanimate a little. You're looking a little zombie-like."

That, at least, got his eyes open enough for me to see how bloodshot they were. I put my hand on his shoulder and shoved past the guys, who had all left the guest room for the living room and entryway. I entered the guest room with Roxas and silently reminded myself to thank Zexion and Demyx for cleaning off and making the bed in the short time I'd been out.

"I know it's messy, but in a few days we'll have it clean and you can start personalizing it a bit, okay?" I told him, knowing he was already out like a light, but feeling the need to say it anyways. I took a deep breath and walked towards the door, where Tifa and the guys were.

Quickly, I told Riku and Axel to get lost, and they obliged, both wearing devious grins. Demyx left, too, though I assured him he could stay. He said he would give Tifa and I time to talk, however long it may take. He gave Zexion a swift kiss on the forehead and was gone, giving a joking salute before walking out the door. Zexion looked at Tifa for a moment before nodding his goodbye to her and saying, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ma'am, but I assume you two would like to catch up."

She smiled and said, "It's nice to meet you, too," she said, and he quickly left Tifa and I alone.

She looked at me for a few seconds before she smiled again, this one sadder and less composed. "You look different," she said.

"Ten years does that to you," I replied.

* * *

It was a week later that all boxes had been gone through and Roxas's new room was perfectly clean. He was still quiet, not saying much to anyone that wasn't his mother who called every night. He answered all questions he was asked but didn't speak freely on his own, instead opting to sit on the couch and look at the bookshelves around the room.

Zexion seemed to have had the most luck with him. During dinner one night when I'd already finished and was doing dishes, I heard the two talking.

"Roxas, do you like to read?" my friend asked.

"Yeah," the kid replied. "There are a lot of books in here."

"You're welcome to read whatever interests you," Zexion told him, and I could hear a small smile in his voice.

I heard one of them get up, light footsteps echoing through the room and then a book being grabbed from a shelf. When I looked back in the living room, Roxas was sitting on the couch, a book resting in his lap, his eyes scanning the pages quickly and intently.

Walking through the opening of the two rooms, I grabbed his plate and Zexion's, taking them back to the kitchen to wash them and set them aside to dry. I entered the living room again and looked at Roxas.

"I have a friend who says there's a place in town that sells sea salt ice cream. He should be coming by tomorrow to show us where it is," I told him.

The boy's eyes looked up the moment I mentioned the ice cream, and he smiled. "Thank you," he said, his eyes bright.

* * *

The next morning, I woke up at eight AM to a loud banging on the door. Grumbling a few curse words, I walked to the door and looked through the peephole, only to be blinded by the fiery red hair of Axel. With a yawn, I opened the door and promptly hit him upside the head.

"What are you doing here so early?" I asked the man, who grinned back at me.

"I wanted to meet the kid before we left. Chances are, you don't trust me to be around him because I'm 'irresponsible' and 'immature' so you're going to keep me from meeting him as long as you can. That is, unless I force myself into your company." The teenager grinned as he walked past me and sprawled out on my couch. "Also, by the way, I love your pajamas. I didn't know you could pull of anything that wasn't black or blue, but the plaid looks nice on you!" he snorted. "You may want to consider a shirt, though."

With a grimace at the man, I ignored his words and went to the kitchen to pour myself a drink. "Axel, if you think you're going to come in here and harass me for the sake of wanting to meet my son, get it through your skull that I'd sooner—"

"Cloud?" a voice asked sleepily. "Who're you talking to?"

Sighing, I looked at the hallway and saw Roxas, his eyes shut against the sunlight. I looked at Axel, whose eyes were wide and looked back between Roxas and me, at all our similarities.

"Just a friend, the one who's going to show us the sea salt ice cream store," I told him. "We're not leaving yet, if you want to go back to bed."

Roxas nodded and turned back around, walking back to his bedroom. When we heard his door shut, Axel blurted, "He looks exactly like you!" He grinned and pointed his finger in the direction Roxas went. "He isn't your son—he's your ten year old _body double_."

I ignored Axel for the rest of the morning, brushing off his mentions of alien testing to get the perfect clone and theories of doppelgangers. When Zexion got up, he took one look in the direction of the red head and said menacingly, "If you say one sentence to me that I deem idiotic, I will find a way to get you into another world and keep you there until you're fifty."

Axel didn't say a word to Zexion. He knew Zexion was a man of his word.

I helped Zexion cook up breakfast as he murmured to me how he was going to spend his day. "I know you to want to spend time with Roxas and get to know him a bit more, so I was going to go to Demyx's house and stay there today and tonight, instead of Demyx coming over here. Roxas isn't little so I'm not scared of crowding him, per se, but I think it'd be better for him to be with you before any of us."

Nodding, I continued to scramble the eggs I was cooking. "I understand, but do you think tomorrow you could help watch him? I need to get him registered for school and I don't know how to do that or how long it'll take. I don't want him to have to wait for me for God-only-knows how long."

"Sure, if you don't mind Demyx helping out," Zexion said. His eyes glanced up at Axel, who was lying on his back on the couch, a book open in his outstretched arms. "If you don't mind my saying, I wouldn't trust him around Roxas. Maybe once or twice is fine, but Axel can be extremely inappropriate and juvenile at best."

I sighed. "I know. I don't want him anywhere near him as much as possible. He already saw Roxas once this morning and wouldn't stop talking about how he was my clone."

Zexion smirked. He flipped the pancakes he was cooking and poured more on the griddle. As he dropped chocolate chips and blueberries in the cooking batter, he said, "Cloud, you two do look remarkably similar. The only thing different about you two is age. If you were younger or he was older, you'd be twins."

"That's ridiculous," I told him, but he only grinned at me for a moment before shaking his head.

Still grinning, Zexion took the remaining pancakes off of the griddle and put them onto a plate. As he grabbed a plate to serve himself his breakfast, Roxas walked into the kitchen, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt, his hair wet.

"Good morning," he said tiredly.

"Did you sleep okay?" I asked him.

He nodded, stifling a yawn. He looked around and saw the pancakes and scrambled eggs and he shuffled around Zexion and me to get to the pancakes. "Tifa called last night," he said, hiding his face underneath his hair.

With wide eyes, I said, "What? When?"

He set his plate on the counter and dished some eggs onto it. "She called your phone after you fell asleep. I was still awake, so when I heard your phone ring I snuck in to see who it was. Mom died yesterday. She called to tell us the funeral was going to be in four days," he said blankly.

Gripping the counter beside me, I looked down at the blonde boy. I knelt down and looked into his eyes. They were red and puffy. "Why didn't you wake me up to tell me this?" I asked.

I vaguely noticed Axel getting up and walking slowly towards the three of us and Zexion setting his plate on the counter and watching.

"I thought she said she had two months, not one," I said to the boy.

He nodded. "Tifa said it affected her faster than it should have. She said she'd call you again today."

I reached a hand up to brush Roxas's bangs out of his eyes and felt wetness on his cheeks, a wetness that wasn't caused by his shower. Pulling him into an unsure hug, he stiffened before he relaxed enough to start shaking in my arms with silent cries. Carefully, I picked him up and brought him to the living room.

Zexion told Axel what happened.

We left for the funeral three days afterward.

When we came back, Roxas slowly began opening up. It was a few months before he really started being who I assume was himself, but only around Zexion and I was he really animated. He was close to Demyx, considering how often he came to visit and stay over, and to my dismay, he even befriended Axel.

When school time came around, he proved himself a good student, easily falling into the Honor Roll and gifted classes. His strongest class was English, though it wasn't a surprise considering how many of Zexion's books he'd already read and how many he still wanted to read.

The first year flew by in what felt like days. His eleventh birthday passed, then his twelfth, then his thirteenth, and then his fourteenth. His fifteenth birthday was a quiet affair per his request, only asking Demyx, Axel, Riku, Riku's boyfriend, and three of his friends from school over: Hayner, a wavy haired dirty blonde who managed to stick his hair up and out behind his head; Pence, a chubby kid who wore a basketball-like sweatband to keep his hair out of his face; and Olette, a brown haired girl who was a feminine tomboy.

Life felt normal after a year or two of Roxas living with us, and soon we acted more like father and son, as opposed to a kid and his new guardian. He began calling me Dad instead of Cloud, and he even began thinking of Zexion as a sort of uncle. However, if you ever asked the blue-haired man how he felt about that, he would vehemently deny that he was touched. Demyx, on the other hand, found it endearing and sweet.

It wasn't until Roxas was fifteen that he told me he was gay. He was awkward and quiet about it, not knowing how I'd take it. "I thought you'd be mad," was what he told me when I asked him why he didn't tell me sooner, but I only shrugged and told him it was okay by me so long as he was happy, and all rules still applied when bringing someone over: no going into the bedroom unless the door stays wide open and curfew at nine.

I never told him I liked guys, too. It was something I decided he didn't have to know.

* * *

**A/N:**

Alrighty then. Chapter one. Now that all your reading is (hopefully) through, I can now go into detail about the bullshit that maybe possibly will go down. And no, this bullshit won't be in regards to the fic.

As previously mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, I'm still writing this. Yes, I'm about 1/3rd of the way through. **But**. As I add more to the story, there are possibilities of me coming back to this chapter (as well as chapter 2, as they both provide the basic information regarding the primary characters) and tweaking a few things. I imagine that, once I finish this whole thing, I'll replace each chapter with the "final copy", if you will, if only to be sure that everything stays constant. Otherwise, I'll just add as an a/n what changes versus what didn't. Does that make sense? I hope so.

Also, I think I'll post the following chapters every few days. I don't want to update too often because then I won't have enough time to write-and therefore I'll catch you guys up with me and I'll be tempted to not finish writing the damn thing. I say that lovingly, of course-this fic probably comes second in my line of "babies", my Bella being first and foremost on this list.

But yeah. Reviews would be appreciated! I had originally made Tifa Roxas's mom and Aerith drop him off afterwards, but switched it around, and their names may possibly still be switched. If you see anything like that (or grammar/spelling/punctuation/whatever) please tell me! And as usual, regular reviews like your thoughts and opinions are also appreciated. c:


	2. 2) Leon

When my parents ordered me to move out, I didn't hesitate. Grabbing a large suitcase and as many clothes as I could grab, I left the following morning without looking back. I knew they wouldn't change their mind, just as I knew I wouldn't change mine. I didn't get my stubbornness from thin air, and they knew it.

I hitchhiked mostly, going from town to town via truck drivers who felt kind enough to let a homeless nineteen year old in. Some offered to give me money for food and a hotel, but I denied everything, telling them that their ride was enough for me. Besides, for every town I stopped in, I had an odd job that always paid me enough to get back on the road.

I lived like that for seven long years, never permanently staying in one area. I would stop somewhere to get a temporary job so that I could pay for a hotel and food, then stock up enough money so that I could go back on the road and get supplies when they began running low. I slept where I could, sometimes resorting to alleys and street corners. My hair grew long, my skin tanned, and it toughened to protect me from the unpredictable weather I trudged through.

In a town that seemed to be permanently stuck in a sunset—appropriately named Twilight Town—I finally was forced to stay longer than anticipated. There were no hotels, and few people were willing to give up a spare bedroom or carpet for a dirty, long-haired homeless man. I wasn't new to the behaviour, nor was this the first town I'd been in like it.

I walked around for a few hours, constantly looking up at the sky to see if the sun had changed positions at all (which it did, albeit very slowly), until I found an alleyway with a caged end. The lock was busted and sheets were placed on the insides of the bars. I peeked inside and found no one, but I found many trinkets and items, everything from posters to newspaper articles to bottlecaps to half written papers with a pen still placed on the sheet.

In the small area were several couches and chairs, nothing bigger than a loveseat but still plenty large enough for someone to curl in and sleep. I let out a huff of air; the small room had walls, a ceiling, and living room-worthy couches. Hoping the residents of the room wouldn't come for a while, I set my pack down and pulled out a small blanket, curling up on one of the larger sofas. Within seconds, I was asleep.

* * *

I woke back to hear four people arguing. Though they were whispering, they didn't seem to feel the need to walk out and do so, and therefore every word was heard. When I remembered where I was, I realized that this was probably their spot. Still, I didn't move, and instead I focused in on what the four were saying.

"… what do you mean 'who is he'? He's a homeless guy who looks like he could use some sleep."

"But we don't know if he's dangerous or not!"

"He looks harmless."

"He's _sleeping_, you dunce."

"Don't call me a dunce!"

"Well then don't point out the obvious."

"Well, I think we should wake him up and ask him his name."

"But what if he pulls a gun on us or something?"

"Then get your phone out and call the cops, but _I'm_ not going to sit here and wait."

Resisting the urge to groan, I opened my eyes and saw four teenagers, none appearing older than sixteen years old: two blonde boys, one light blonde and the other dirty blonde; a brunette boy; and a brunette girl. None looked related, though the taller of the blondes and the girl stood too close to each other to be friends. I shut my eyes with a wince and tried to sit up and the four of them jumped back, all eight eyes staring at me.

"I'm unarmed," I told the lot of them. "No guns, no knives, not even a lighter—you can go through everything I have if you don't believe me."

The shorter of the blondes narrowed his eyes at me while the other blonde said, "What's your name?"

"I'm Leon," I told them blandly, bringing a hand up to my forehead, trying to force back the sleep-deprived headache forming there.

The taller blonde looked me up and down and he nodded. "I'm Hayner."

The girl stared at him. "What are you doing? We don't know him!" she whispered urgently.

I nodded towards her. "She has a point, you know, but I'm just passing through. I don't plan on staying here any longer than necessary."

Hayner shrugged. "C'm_on_," he said to his friends. "Do you really think a fugitive would ever want to come to a place like Twilight Town?"

The brunette boy looked conflicted. "_He's_ got a point," he said to the girl. Then, looking at me, he said, "I'm Pence."

"Nice to meet you, Pence," I told him.

The girl frowned and looked at the blonde that had yet to speak. His eyes were staring at me, as if he were studying me. The girl sighed, giving in. "I'm Olette."

"Hello, Olette," I said quietly.

"What are you doing here?" the unnamed blonde asked.

I looked at him and said honestly, "I'm a hitchhiker. I got a ride over here and tried to find a hotel, but there isn't one. So I walked around, found this place, and passed out."

"Where's your family?" he asked, his eyes curious but guarded.

"No idea; I haven't seen them in years."

"So you're homeless?"

I gave him a sarcastic grin. "Guilty as charged," I told him.

He looked at me and said nothing else, his blue eyes narrowed as though searching for something. He didn't introduce himself or ask another question. Instead he walked out, pulling a phone out of his pocket as he turned around.

The other three looked on as he called someone. I felt my skin beginning crawl, thinking of who he was on the phone with and what he was saying, but I didn't think too much beyond it. Then Hayner said interestedly, "What's your last name Leon?"

I shook my head. "I don't have one."

He smirked. "Everyone has a last name; you just don't want to tell me."

Ignoring the blonde, I looked back at the "door", where the other blonde stepped back in. "If you need to shower and get some food, my dad says our house is open. But you're either coming now or you're not coming at all."

I furrowed my brows together. "Why?"

"Because I don't like waiting, and if you stay here, Seifer and his gang will come and find you, and they will not hesitate to harass and beat you," he hissed. "I don't want that on my conscious. So either follow me to my house, or get knocked out. It's your choice."

The taller blonde frowned slightly at the his words, though Pence said, "He's right. Seifer would beat you to a pulp."

So I followed the blonde, who had said goodbye to his friends shortly after we walked through the Tram Common. I followed him through a small forest, and then into a different part of the town where the buildings weren't quite so yellow, and instead more of a blue toned colour. It almost reminded me of the houses in my old home. Just before reaching the knob on the front door of a house, the chilly blonde said, "Wipe off your feet if you don't mind, and take your shoes off right inside the door."

"Roxas? Are you home?" a voice called, and emerging from a corner I saw a man who appeared to be the same blonde I followed, only older. He was drying his hands on a paper towel, and his blue eyes held the same analytical look as the smaller blonde's eyes did.

"Yeah, I'm here. Is Zexion home, or is he out?" the blonde asked.

The older of the two shook his head. "No, he's staying over at Demyx's house tonight. I told him to get lost if he was just going to stay on the phone with him." He paused and looked at me. "I'm Cloud," he said, walking towards us and extending his hand.

I nodded in greeting. "I'm Leon. I would shake your hand but I'm afraid I haven't washed my own recently and wouldn't want to muck yours up."

Cloud chuckled. Looking at the smaller blonde, he said, "Rox, I'm cooking some dinner. If you want to show him where the shower is, it would be appreciated. And," he said, looking at me again, sizing me up with his eyes, "you look like you'll fit in my clothes, at least for tonight until we can get yours washed." Glancing at the other blonde, he told him, "If you want to grab some clothes for him, like some pajama pants and a T shirt, before he gets in the shower that would also be appreciated."

The smaller blonde nodded. He looked at me after the man walked away and nodded to follow him. He stopped inside a bedroom door and told me to wait as he grabbed some clothes, and he appeared again with a handful of clean pajamas. Handing them to me, he grabbed a towel and a hand towel from a small linen closet, and then set them in the bathroom opposite the closet.

"Everything should be in here, but if you need anything just yell. Leave your clothes right outside the door and we'll wash all of it," he said before turning on his heels and leaving, shutting the door behind him.

I looked in the mirror just after I turned the faucet on and was shocked to see just how long my hair had gotten. It reached just past my shoulders, some parts sticking up and other parts flicking out, a weak imitation of my natural wavy hair. My face was dirty and only my eyes appeared to have any life to them, though they no longer appeared blue unless you were close, and instead they were a fierce gray.

When I finally stepped into the shower, the hot water seemed like a blessing. The two blondes obviously used different shampoos, though there was a third kind as well, and I remembered what the younger had asked:_ Is Zexion home, or is he out_? There was another person who lived here, and I quickly noted that. I used the shampoo nearest, which smelled soft and vaguely floral, and scrubbed at my scalp, reveling in the clean scent and feeling. Twice I washed my hair, and then I conditioned it, and while doing so I washed my face and body as thoroughly as possible.

I didn't get out of the shower until the hot water started going out, which probably meant I was in there longer than what should've been necessary. When I got out, the mirror was thick with steam, so I towel dried myself and dressed in the clothes Roxas got out for me. Though the pant legs were an inch too short and the shirt was slightly too large, it all fit rather comfortably.

I left the bathroom after towel drying my hair and navigated my way back to the two blondes. They were sitting in the living room, the younger of the two talking about what he did with a person named Axel. When they saw me, Cloud waved me over and motioned for me to sit on the couch.

"Leon, was it?" he asked, cutting off what the small blonde was saying.

I nodded.

"No last name?" he said, an eyebrow rising.

"No," I told him.

His eyes narrowed, and I saw a striking resemblance to the younger blonde in his face. "Are you saying you don't _have_ a last name, or do you not want me to know it?" he asked.

I shrugged, telling him honestly, "I dropped it when my parents kicked me out."

"How old are you?" the younger asked, and I noticed Cloud glance from me to him and back to me.

"I'm twenty six."

Cloud's eyes widened again. "Twenty six?" he asked. "You look older than that."

"Being homeless for seven years does that," I told him. My voice was devoid of any self-pity and I said it matter-of-factly, but that didn't stop the two blondes from looking at each other with surprise in their eyes. Stifling a sigh, I said, "I don't regret anything. Living on the road has given me more memories and life experience in seven years than living with my parents did in nineteen. They kicked me out, I packed my bags, and I left; end of story."

Cloud nodded after a moment and he said, "I'm Cloud Strife," he said for the second time.

The smaller of the two gave a half-hearted wave. "Roxas Gainsborough-Strife, at your service," he said. Then, after a brief few seconds, he added, "And before you ask or assume wrongly, he's my dad, not my older brother."

My brows knitted together and looked at the both of them. "You look like you're sixteen, at most. How old are you?" I asked Cloud.

He grimaced and said, "I'm thirty-two."

Leaning back, I nodded. I thought it best to avoid asking anything else, knowing from basic math that however old the kid was, Cloud was a teenage father. With an added slight nod, I stopped thinking about the subject.

With a deep breath, Cloud stood and looked at the two of us as he walked towards the kitchen. "Dinner's ready, by the way," he said, and it was an effective way to end the discussion.

I was sleeping on the sofa, though Cloud assured me that if they had an extra room (and if the other housemate weren't so picky about his bedroom being disturbed, he said), I would've stayed in there. I was given extra pillows and a thick blanket, and given that I was on something cushioned and soft with a warm blanket, I was out again in seconds.

* * *

"_Who's this guy on the couch_?!"

The voice was loud and very brazen, and that was my alarm clock. In a number of seconds, Cloud was in the living room, threatening to beat the newcomer until he was black and blue for waking them up at eight in the morning. The newcomer only laughed.

"Cloud, you know I work the night shift on the Friday and Saturday nights, just like you know I come every here weekend at eight AM and wake you two up and crash for the day. However, you did _not_ answer my question." He looked at me and repeated, "Who's the guy on the couch, and why is he wearing the shirt I gave you last Christmas?"

The blonde glared at the newcomer, who I was shocked to see had a mane of wild red hair and shocking green eyes. "Roxas met him yesterday and he needed a place to stay. His name is Leon, and he's wearing that shirt because he needed clean clothes and a shower. Are you happy?" he snapped, and I fought the urge to laugh in spite of his anger.

The red head, however, grinned. "Nice to meet you, Leon," he said, sarcastically bowing in my direction. "I'm Axel, who no doubt you've heard nothing but horrible things about, if he brought my name up at all while you've been here."

Appearing in the doorway, Roxas stumbled in and hissed at the red head, "Axel, shut up. It's too early in the morning to be dealing with you."

The red head laughed. "Ah, morning time in the Strife household," he said, looking at me. "You never do get used to it."

When a wadded up piece of clothing flew across the room and hit Axel in the face, he gave a content sigh. Looking at Cloud, who now was not wearing a shirt, Axel gave yet another bow. "My work here is done. You two blondes are up, and I've already managed to make Cloud hit me. Is this a new record?" he asked, and looking down at his watch, he began cheering. "Yes! New record, Cloud! Seven o' nine in the morning and you've already thrown something at me!"

Cloud grumbled, "You have issues, and I'm going back to bed before I have to go to work."

The red head jumped up as Cloud turned his back, and he wrapped his long arms around the blonde's chest. "Ah, you know you love me, Honey," he exclaimed, resulting in Cloud elbowing the red head in the face and walking away. When his door slammed shut, Roxas frowned, his eyes disapproving, and ran towards the red head.

"Eleven years I've known that bastard, and he wants to hit me more and more each day," Axel laughed.

Roxas frowned. "Let me see your face, Axel," he said, grabbing the front of the taller man's shirt and yanking it down. Axel rolled his eyes and looked at me.

"So—Leon," he said, wincing as Roxas pressed his fingers to Axel's nose. "What are you doing in town?"

I resisted a yawn and said, "Nothing."

"Nothing at all?" he asked, wincing as Roxas prodded his nose.

Roxas glanced at me and said, "He's homeless, Axel. He was sleeping in the Usual Spot when the guys and I got there. I told him to either come here or he'd meet Seifer, and he came."

The red head rolled his eyes. Looking at me, he said, "Seifer is the town's resident bad guy, but he's all bark and no bite. Seriously, I think the worst he's ever done is accidentally flick a kid during some fourth grade class-building exercise."

Roxas looked at the red head with a weird look on his face—he didn't look scared or intimidated, but he clearly thought otherwise. Saying nothing, he continued poking Axel's face.

"So, Rox, do you want to get some ice cream today?" Axel asked.

The blonde shrugged. "Do I want to? Duh. Will I? I doubt it. Demyx is coming over today to let me borrow some new CDs of his."

Axel frowned at the blonde, but he looked at me and said, "How about you, Leon? I get the feeling you don't like being cooped up in a house all day."

I looked at Roxas, asking, "Are my clothes clean?"

The blonde nodded. "I have them folded in the basket right there," he told me, and looking over I saw that, indeed, they were clean and folded right beside me. I stood and stretched, reaching over and grabbing the basket of clothes, trying to find my good jeans and a shirt that wasn't too stained. Eventually I gave up and grabbed a white shirt and my black leather jacket and excused myself to the bathroom.

I changed quickly and brushed my teeth, then gave up on trying to do anything with my hair except finger comb it. I left the bathroom to find Cloud leaning against the opposite wall, his eyes shut and a brooding expression on his face. He sighed and opened his eyes, giving me an expression of exasperation.

"I've known Axel since he was thirteen years old and I've watched him grow up and into the flirtatious ass he is today. If Roxas didn't _actually_ like him as a friend I would've kicked him out years ago."

I smirked. "You sound like a good father. If someone like him came anywhere near my brother, I would've kicked his ass regardless of if he was friends with him or not."

The blonde snorted, "'Good father' my ass. I'm winging it as it is."

I shrugged. "You seemed to be getting on well enough. You're a better dad to him than mine was to us, at any rate."

With a shake of his head, the blonde entered the bathroom and shut the door behind him. I walked away, wondering what the man was thinking.

In the living room, Axel and Roxas were arguing about whether or not to do something. It seemed, after a moment of listening to the conversation, Axel still wanted Roxas to come get ice cream. The blonde rolled his eyes. "Axel, for the last time: no. I'm staying home today to try and get some sleep before Demyx and Zex get here. If I try to go to sleep while Demyx is here, you know he won't hesitate to jump on me."

The red head laughed but gave in. "Fine, but I'm coming by later. Tell your pops that for me, okay?"

Roxas turned away. "Goodbye, Axel," he said over his shoulder, waving halfheartedly.

Axel turned back around and looked at me. "You ready to go?" he asked.

* * *

It was amusing, the stares Axel and I received walking around Twilight Town. It seemed he never stopped talking, and at the same time, it was nearly impossible for him to talk quietly. Everything he said was loud and everyone within a fifteen foot radius of us heard our entire conversation, though he was the one providing most of the dialogue. I didn't care much—I actually found it quite amusing. That is, until he started asking me questions.

"So, Leon, why do you hitchhike?" he asked me, his hand gripping the stick of what he called sea salt ice cream.

"Why do you want to know?" I countered.

He shrugged. "We don't get many visitors here. Really, the last person who came was Roxas, and he's been here for five years. My best friend Riku _technically_ lives here, but he's always leaving to go visit his boyfriend in some other world. We don't get visitors often."

Looking at the red head, I raised an eyebrow. "A ton of visitors or a few visitors, I don't care. You should have enough sense to not barge in on someone's personal life—especially someone you've known for an hour, at most."

He only laughed. "Most of the guys here do. I'm the odd one out. I love knowing about people. It's a weird hobby, but it can be beneficial. Let's take Roxas for example: I've known him since he came here. I found out his mom died. If I hadn't known that, I would've blurted out something stupid that would've hurt him—but because I have a weird-ass hobby of wanting to know about people, I knew not to bring it up."

I snorted. "And you want to know why I'm homeless so you know not to bring it up?" I asked.

"Something like that," he chuckled. "I just like knowing things; I was top of my class in school, you know. Well, I was next to Demyx, but he doesn't count because Zexion 'tutored' him all year," he rambled, the sarcasm obvious in his voice when he said the word _tutored_, but finished, "But whether it's because I shouldn't bring something up or whatever just depends on what I find out."

Shaking my head, I said, "The only thing I'm saying to anyone here is what I've already told Cloud, Roxas, and the other kids Roxas was with."

Axel groaned. "Yeah, yeah—your parents kicked you out. But _why_?" he asked. "I mean, if you got some chick pregnant like Cloud did, you could just say that. Or if you killed someone, I'd understand, but you don't seem homicidal. Zexion on the other hand—"

"It isn't important, so if you wouldn't mind dropping the subject, I'd be grateful."

The red head rolled his eyes, but he did drop it. Instead, he talked about himself. "I've lived here my whole life. Riku and I've known each other since we were born, except he's a few days older than me. Demyx, Riku, and I have been best friends since we were little. Zexion and I have known each other since _I_ was a baby, but he's four years older than me. I think he and Cloud met at work, because Cloud was living here alone and was friends with Zexion, so when Zexion wanted to move here permanently Cloud offered. Cloud is older than him by four years."

The red head continued blabbering for a while. I stopped paying much attention, given the fact that he mentioned a lot of names yet I only recognized Cloud and Roxas's. He mentioned having an older brother and a younger half-sister who lived in a different world. I would occasionally hear him talk about Cloud, but mostly he seemed to only be saying what he was thinking. I didn't mind him not pausing long enough to give me a chance to speak. It meant I didn't have to open up about myself. At the same time, however, it forced me to look back at my own life.

It had seemed like more than seven years that I'd last seen my brother. Sora was his name, and the only similarity the two of us had shared was our hair: thick and rich, it was the colour of good dark chocolate. His was always cut considerably shorter than mine, and he rarely brushed it when he woke up, so some strands would clump together and stick up in places all over his head. His eyes were blue, bluer than a cloudless sky after a heavy rain. It was because of his eyes that our parents had named him Sora: it literally translated into _sky_.

Sora was only fifteen when I left. He was old enough to decide for himself what he should and shouldn't do, despite what our parents thought of him being naïve and dimwitted. Had I been given a chance, I would've asked him to come with me. If he had said yes, I wouldn't have spent the last seven years hopping from one place to another, never settling down.

That was years ago, and now Sora's twenty-two. Now I'm moving to try and find him. I'm constantly searching for a sign of his impossible blue eyes and signature brown hair, but inside the fear of never finding him lurks. Dozens of possibilities run through my mind, the next more unnerving than the last. Was it possible he'd changed his hair? Did he buy coloured contacts? Did our parents find out that he, too, was gay, and kick him out like they did me, or was it possible he'd kept it a secret until he moved out? Did he look for me when he had the chance?

Yet I didn't lie to Cloud: seven years on the road had benefited me more that nineteen did with my parents. I learned how to fight and stay alive on the streets. I learned how to block out whispers and stares. I learned how to protect myself from sudden storms and harsh weather. I learned that, in some areas, it paid better to sell my body than it was to work a respectable job, that seduction worked more effectively than anything else.

Above all else, I learned how to live for the moment. I stopped worrying about "tomorrow". I realized that worrying about what could've been was pointless, that the only thing you could do was accept whatever had happened and move on.

I knew when I left home that I needed a new start. I began introducing myself as Leon, completely forgoing my birth name and surname. I told no one, to include possible employers, of my family history or my life prior to nineteen years of age, and never did I get a sudden, strange urge to want to share my life story with anyone.

My instinct told me to leave the area. After years of being on my own and never getting close to others, the idea of doing just that sent warning shots through my head and it was all I could do to resist. I'd never met a group so different, though. After less than twenty four hours of knowing these people, I already began getting surprised.

One of the common facts of living on the road is that you'll meet new people. That being said, you'll go from town to town and you'll pick up on common things people do. After a few months, you'll begin to see a pattern. Within a few years, that pattern will manifest into a theme. That theme will continue and continue, until eventually you realize there is nothing unique to a specific person or group of people. And yet, with the Strifes', I'd already seen differences that I haven't found with any other father and son in seven years.

It wasn't as if the differences were obvious. There were subtle, tiny things that made them different. The fact that Cloud was so comfortable around his son (and likewise, his son was as comfortable around him) was unusual, as most teenage boys tended to shy away from their fathers.

It was aggravating, this feeling of wanting to stay to get to know this man and his son, yet it wasn't aggravating in and of itself; it was aggravating because it conflicted with my need to find my brother. Since he'd turned eighteen—my third year on the road—I began inching closer to my home-world in search of him. Here, in TwilightTown, I was only one world away from where I used to live.

I shook my head, pulling out of my reverie. I'd been walking for nearly three hours, strolling aimlessly around the quiet town. I had left Axel after he'd said he would be back with me "in a moment" nearly an hour previously to talk to a friend, and after a minute of waiting, I walked on, politely nodding and saying "hello" when the occasional shop owner or resident greeted me.

The town was rather small, something I knew but didn't know the extent of. There was no main shopping center; instead there was what was called the Tram Common and Market Street, both of which held small specialty stores of clothing, accessories, and food. Separating the two areas was the Sandlot, a corner with buildings on each side making it feel boxed in. The Sandlot had something similar to a boxing ring in the center: a raised square of cement with a garage full of sports equipment—mostly Struggle bats and protective gear, the sign on the aluminum garage-door declared. One of the alleys connected to the Sandlot was the same alley with what Roxas called The Usual Spot, and on the other end of the alleyway was a shortcut to Market Street and through there was a shortcut to Central Station, the bus station that led to Sunset Terrace.

The town was quiet, no more than four townsfolk per area. There were a few teenagers and older kids running around doing jobs that patrons of the area offered to the kids so they could have some cash. I saw an occasional stray animal, though none of them without a bright collar, meaning they had a home to go to and an owner to harass.

I walked through Market Street and glanced around, no longer seeing Axel in the spot I'd left him. I wasn't surprised, noting that it _had_ been an hour, give or take, since we'd separated. Avoiding the eyes of the few people who stared at me, I began making my way back towards Cloud's home, hoping maybe the blonde and his son were gone so I could leave quietly and quickly.

Cutting through the Sandlot to get to the Tram Common, where the direction of his house was, I walked and noticed Hayner and a taller guy, looking to be in his late teens or early twenties, at the oldest roughly my own age. Hayner was pressed against the door to the garage, his eyes wide open and looking up at the other man, who was so close that every time Hayner took a breath, he touched the man with his chest. The man, who wore a long white coat and a black beanie, braced one forearm on the wall only a centimeter or two away from Hayner, his forehead resting against the younger teen's. He was laughing, the sound carrying over to the other side of the Sandlot, and Hayner retaliated by pressing a peck on the man's lips.

I shook my head and looked away, ignoring the two. What they did with their time was their business, not mine. I walked on, leaving the Sandlot and entering the alleyway, where few people were in. I went on to Cloud's home (sometimes guessing the direction to walk to, given that I hadn't paid attention to surroundings when Roxas brought me there nor when Axel and I left that morning), and knocked soundly so any inhabitant in the house heard.

To my dismay, the door opened quickly, revealing an unfamiliar man my height with ridiculously styled blonde hair—the hair on the top of his head standing straight up, with only a few strands left down as bangs; the sides of his head were shaved not-quite to baldness, and he left the back of his head's hair long, as if in a modern-day mullet—and bright aqua eyes. They were wide open and framed by thick, blonde eyelashes, and he wore a ring in his left eyebrow.

The man smiled nervously. "Rox said someone looking like you might come by. You're Leon, then?" he asked.

I nodded shortly, and the man looked less nervous. "That's a relief!" he exclaimed. He chuckled, ushering me inside the building and shutting the door behind me. "No offence, but you look a little intimidating. I think it's the eyes—are those naturally that gray, or are they contacts?"

I followed the man into the living room, where I saw Roxas and another man, this one rather tiny compared to the blonde who welcomed me inside, with odd steel-blue hair that darkened near the ends of each strand and navy eyes framed by thick-rimmed glasses.

"Leon," Roxas said, looking up at me from his spot on the floor. The blonde sat on the armrest of the chair that the blue-haired man was sitting on. "The guy with the weird hair is Demyx," Roxas told me, grinning as the man scoffed at him, "and the guy he's lying down on is Zexion."

Zexion pushed Demyx off of his lap—because he _had_ fallen backwards and across the two armrests—and stood, holding his hand out to me. He came roughly to my neck in height, and seemed only an inch or so taller than Roxas. "Roxas said you might come by, and to be mindful that Axel might be with you. However, may I just applaud you for managing to get that idiot away from you?" he asked, his one visible eyebrow raised.

Demyx rolled his eyes. "What he means is, 'Hello, my name is Zexion, and it's nice to meet you'. And besides, Zex, Axel isn't _that_ bad."

The blue-haired man glared at Demyx. "He's immature and rude, not to mention childish and obnoxious. Forgive me for not enjoying his company."

Demyx whined, "He's only a few months younger than _me_, you know, and you call me childish and immature, too."

"But you know I say it lovingly," Zexion countered, looking at the blonde with a smile in his eyes.

Roxas interrupted, "You guys, I'd rather not suffer with a weird make-out session. I'm sure Leon wouldn't either."

The two looked at him, Demyx grinning apologetically and Zexion smiling. Then, looking at me, Zexion said, "Axel aside, welcome to Twilight Town. From what Roxas has said, you... travel a lot—" he glanced at Roxas unsurely as he said this— "so I'm not sure what you're used to, but as I doubt you've been properly greeted, consider this your official welcoming."

"Thank you," I told him, and then I turned to Demyx. "And in answer to your first question, they're naturally gray," I informed the blonde.

"Cloud wanted me to ask you to at least stay until tomorrow so you have a full day's rest if you want to leave again. He went to work," Roxas said, not looking up from the CD he held in his hands. "Dem, how long is this album?"

As Demyx hopped up to sit next to the blonde, Zexion glanced at me, his one visible eye staring as if studying me. With a heave, he stood up from the chair and walked to the kitchen, motioning for me to follow.

Zexion pulled two glasses from the shelf and grabbed a carton of vanilla flavoured soy milk from the refrigerator and filled one glass. "What would you like to drink, Squall?" he asked.

My eyes snapped to the shorter man's hidden face. He said nothing more, only looking around the kitchen, his eye swiveling around, narrowed, until he yelled, "Demyx, where are the straws?"

"On top of the fridge!" the blonde in question snickered.

The blue-haired man glared at Demyx from the kitchen, and I reached up and grabbed the pack from where Zexion couldn't reach. Handing them to him, I murmured, "How do you know my name?"

He glanced at me, taking one straw from the pack and placing it in his glass. "Your brother has many pictures of you. You haven't changed much, except your hair is lighter because of the sun and your skin is leathery."

"How do you know my brother?" I asked him, leaning against the counter, trying to ignore the rapid beating of my heart.

Zexion shrugged, reaching into the freezer and pulling a few ice cubes out and putting them in my empty glass. "I went to visit a long-time friend of mine last year and he told me to just come to his boyfriend's house because that's where he lives when he isn't here. Your brother's bedroom wall is covered with pictures of the two of you ranging from birth up until you left."

The man looked at me, his visible eye sincere. "I'm not accusing you of anything; I just had to make sure you were who I thought you were. Your brother misses you. He looks sad when he thinks no one is looking at him. My friend—his boyfriend—makes him happy but I think he misses you too much." With a pause, he added, "I'm not going to tell him I know you're here either; I think you should tell him yourself."

I said nothing, only spending a few moments processing what the shorter man just told me. He placed a hand on my shoulder consolingly and exited the kitchen, both his small hands wrapped around his glass. Running some water in my own glass, I sighed.

Back in the living room, Demyx and Roxas turned on the stereo system and began playing a very bass-heavy electronic song, one that seemed never-ending. Demyx was pretending to play on an invisible drum set, beating with the rhythm of the beats in the song, while Roxas was lying on his back on the floor, his eyes spaced out as he listened to the music.

I looked at Zexion, who was watching Demyx with a gentle smile on his face. The man was sitting as if in a ball—his legs crossed underneath him, his arms wrapped around a worn book in his lap—but he looked comfortable. His steel-blue hair fell over the right side of his face completely, though his hair was rather short—reaching an inch above his collarbone in the front though not even reaching the skin on the back of his neck at the back of his head. It was difficult to imagine him being friends with my brother, who always was loud and on the aggravating side if you weren't used to him.

Sighing, I walked to the front door and let myself out, only to sit on the top step leading onto the porch. _Sora's okay_, I thought indistinctly. With a small smile, I hung my head, allowing my hair to cover my face. The fact that my brother seemed well off was good news, and the fact that he seemed to have found someone he cared about was, too.

_Your brother misses you. He looks sad when he thinks no one is looking at him_, Zexion had said. I clenched my eyes shut. The Sora I remembered was very oriented on his friends and family; it wasn't difficult at all to believe Zexion.

* * *

**A/N:**

I don't think you guys realize how irritated I am right now. I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow, but due to my serious urge to hit the nearest solid object, I need to distract myself. I was trying to write a bit more to the current chapter of this fic (not to be confused with _this_ chapter) and I've written and rewritten it so many times that I'm debating whether or not to completely scrap it and do a different character's point of view. But if I do that, all it means is I have to come back to it later, which won't help in the long run. Ugh. It's ridiculous.

To be perfectly honest, there's a lot in this chapter that I kinda just bull-shitted. For instance, I realize being homeless for seven years doesn't just zip by, and I know Twilight Town (at least that we see in the games) only has a handful of places. I sorta made up a housing area in between where the Tram Common meets up with the Old Mansion, right in that forest-y place. We're pretending it exists for the sake of the story.

Also, Leon totally used Cloud's flowery shampoo. I actually asked Tumblr for suggestions on that! I asked what they figured Cloud's shampoo smelled like. Well, first I asked my sister (to which her honest-to-God answer was, and I quote, "Cloud smells like the tears of a thousand orphans") and then I asked Tumblr. Answers ranged from "like angst" to "strawberries" to "death", and someone just answered "spikes". Nothing else, just the one word. I didn't really get that one. But someone said they figured his shampoo would be either lightly fruity or floral, and it would be in memory of Aerith, and I really liked that answer.

I figure the next chapter will be up day after tomorrow. I have to work out in the yard tomorrow (cutting grass while it's at the hottest month of the year in southern Mississippi just _isn't_ cool, I don't care who or what you are) so I guess I'll just attempt to scrounge something up for the current chapter and watch A:LoK.

Until then, reviews are appreciated, as always! (And also, I tried replying so those of you who reviewed on the last chapter, but your PM boxes are closed! But for the one who said you'd shove me in a tongue commercial if I didn't update soon: your review had me in tears from laughing so hard and I love you omg.)


	3. 3) Zexion

Life with Demyx was interesting; not because he was three years younger and acted more on his whims than his wits, but because he was everything I wanted to be and more. He was my opposite but also my other half.

Since I was nineteen we've known each other and when I turned twenty-two was when he asked me out on our first date, and every year brings another bout of surprises I didn't know about the blonde. The last six years with the energetic man was enough to drive me insane, but it was worth every minute. Every time he got into a certain predicament and required my help, he made up for it with a new book or a trip to a different world, or even a nice, quiet night at his house.

It was through chance that the two of us met. We went to the same high school, where he was automatically popular alongside Riku and Axel, despite being a freshman, because of his unique look and lovable personality—yes, even in high school he sported the ridiculous vertical-hair and mullet combination, though less severe as his sides weren't shaved nor his hair as long—and he required a student-teacher if he planned to pass his classes. Being the only student the principal trusted with the blonde student, I became his tutor.

The first month was rough. Demyx was nice and knew he needed to buckle down and study, but his attention was constantly elsewhere and he couldn't learn by simply reading what was in the books and memorizing what he read. He tried as hard as he could to study the traditional way, but nothing got through to him until one day, he brought his CD player with a playlist he'd made, and he worked out question after question as he sang to the songs with only a small fraction of them wrong.

We learned quickly to apply what he enjoyed to his studying. He would bring his personal stereo and a new CD every day, and the two of us would go over a number of chapters in his assigned text books, going over every question he'd been assigned until he almost began to recite it.

By the end of that year, he passed every one of his classes with nothing less than a B, and he attended my graduation. He passed his sophomore year with Honors a year later, and again with his junior year. During his senior year, he called me again, this time asking desperately if I could come back and help him again.

So I did, knowing I had a lengthy break in my school work, and I looked at the blonde as if I'd never seen him before when he greeted me at the airport. He'd grown at least a half a foot, and his eyes looked brighter than I remembered. He was more muscular that he'd been when I met him, he wore a silver ring in his left eyebrow, and he made sure the first thing he commented on was that I'd not grown any taller.

He seemed genuinely frustrated with his school work, but studied much like he did in his first year with me. He had his own small apartment—only a few weeks he'd lived in it—and invited me over.

His grades skyrocketed, and he graduated with the top fifteen students in his class. I attended his graduation like he attended mine, and when he was allowed to leave, instead of going to his family and friends, he ran to me and picked me up in a tight hug.

It wasn't long after that he asked me on a date, and from then on the both of us began dating. I moved back to Twilight Town permanently, but moved in with Cloud, a friend I knew through my job and a close friend of Demyx's, and Demyx came to visit every weekend.

When Aerith came to visit and introduce us to Roxas, I wasn't entirely surprised. Cloud was remarkably silent about his life before living in Twilight Town. He had no pictures or documentation of his childhood or teenage years, and when the subject of children was brought up, he silenced himself and withdrew from the conversation. When Roxas came to live with us permanently, he began opening up about his life, telling us what his teenage years were like and grudgingly explaining why he was so closed about his life.

And there was Riku, a friend of mine since childhood and Demyx's best friend since he was young, who had always dreamed of moving away from a young age. He would talk incessantly about how he was going to save up enough money to go traveling. He never shut up about all the worlds he would visit, and when finally the time came for him to leave, he took the opportunity and packed his bags, leaving his house to be kept by his friends until he returned.

He finally came back three months later, bags full of souvenirs and gifts, several cameras full of pictures and videos, his skin tanned and his hair several shades lighter. He came long enough to get used to being back and he left again. This time he came back a year later with a tall brunette with sky-blue eyes and scattered freckles named Sora. Riku explained that he lived with Sora when he wasn't here, after having met him one day when he was trying to find a place to sleep.

It was difficult to believe that the stoic, serious Leon was the older brother of Sora, who was naive and believed in the good of everyone. It didn't seem to fit the descriptions Sora gave of his older brother. Yet, at the same time, the similarities between the two were obvious if you knew the both of them. Sora and Leon shared the same rich brown hair. Leon's was sun damaged and dry from the weather over his years of traveling, but his colour was true to how it must have been when he was younger, and the two simply seemed similar like siblings _do_.

I glanced at Roxas and Demyx both before turning back to my book. The two were good friends, no doubt better friends than Roxas was with his classmates. I curved my lips in a smile at Demyx who was jumping around the living room, dancing to the music I'd grown to love. I burrowed deeper into my chair and read from the book Demyx had given me during our third date.

Not long after I began reading it for the thousandth time, Cloud and Leon walked into the living room. Cloud was breathing as if he'd just finished running a marathon, and his hair looked as if it had begun drying from a shower. He glared at nothing in particular as he walked through the living room, saying nothing except throwing the words, "I'm showering!" over his shoulder.

Roxas frowned, saying, "Cid overworked him again today. When will that man realize everyone has their limits?"

Demyx laughed. "Rox, Cid assumes everyone works like he does: as long as there's a cigarette between his lips and his hands aren't broken, he'll work. He's a machine. Besides, Cloud acts like a machine himself—he's too stubborn for his own good."

"Even machines have limits," the younger blonde said, "before they fall apart from over-exertion."

"Roxas has a point, Demyx," I said with a sigh. "Cid's been overworking him a lot. I'm surprised he hasn't given out."

Demyx looked at me with a frown before looking at Leon. The man was leaning against the counter separating the kitchen from the living room, looking at the glass of water he held in his hands.

"Hey, Leon," Demyx called, causing the brunette to look up at him, his gray eyes thoughtful. "Come over here and sit with us."

The man started forward, his body slow and measured. He sat on the floor due to the lack of open chairs, pulling one knee up and resting his arm on it.

Demyx frowned at the man. "What are you like, Leon?" he asked.

Leon shrugged. "I don't like being in one place too long," he admitted, his fingers rapping on his kneecap.

"Clearly," Demyx laughed. "You seem like the kind of person who wouldn't stay somewhere for longer than a week."

He smirked. "Not entirely true," he admitted, "but close enough. I usually don't stay for longer than three days unless I need to resupply and stock up on some things."

"What do you mean?" Demyx asked, his chin resting on his knee, his eyes wide and inquiring.

The brunette shrugged. "When I start running low on money, I get a cheap job until I have enough to get back on the road. Longest I've ever spent somewhere is a month," he said.

"What kind of jobs?" Roxas asked suddenly, his own blue eyes questioning.

Leon looked down. "The ones no one like to do; it varies depending on the area," he answered, though his tone had changed and hardened.

Demyx and Roxas looked at Leon for a few moments before looking at each other. Roxas piped up, "Do you think you'll stay here for a few days?"

He looked at Roxas, his eyebrows knitted together. "I doubt it, seeing as there's no hotel here."

With a roll of his eyes, the blonde gazed at Leon. "I was just thinking, you know… you didn't have much money yesterday when the guys and I found you. You could stay here if you want," he said.

"Isn't that something you should talk to me about first?" Cloud asked from the doorway, a towel around his neck as he dried his hair, wearing pajama pants and a tank top.

Roxas shrugged. "He needs some place to sleep if he's going to stay in town and it's not like you'd tell him to get lost, Dad."

The older man frowned at his son before walking forward slowly. I watched as Roxas got up and sat on the floor, giving his chair to his dad, who eased himself in it slowly with a wince on his face the entire time.

I looked at blonde, knowing he'd see the concern in my eyes. "Cloud, you need to tell Cid to lay off if he's working you that much."

But he waved me off, his expression now relatively relaxed. "I volunteered today. I just didn't realize what I was volunteering _for_ before I did."

"And what were you volunteering for?" Roxas asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Loading materials onto some helicopters to be sent to the military," he answered. "Cid didn't tell us how many 'copters, though. We figured he meant one or two."

"How many were there?" Demyx asked, laughing at the blonde.

With one eye open and glaring at Demyx, Cloud stated, "I'd like to see you load over-stuffed boxes of scraps into eight helicopters." With a sigh, he shut his eye again. "Cid gave me tomorrow off—said I worked my share today."

Roxas nodded. "Good," he said. "You deserve a rest."

Cloud nodded absently before his eyebrows furrowed on his forehead. Turning his head towards Demyx without opening his eyes, he asked, "Are you staying tonight?"

Demyx looked at me and I shrugged; he knew it wouldn't matter to me, due to the fact that I'd follow him regardless of where he remained. He turned back to Cloud and shrugged. "Sure, why not," he answered.

"Well, it's almost eight so we should probably get some dinner going," the blonde said, though he made no move to get up.

I looked at the blonde—as well as Roxas, Demyx, and Leon—and sighed. "Want me to order some pizza?"

Cloud shrugged. "If you want," he answered. "I'm gonna go to bed though. I'm exhausted." He stood and stretched, opening one bleary eye at Leon, who was watching idly. "If you want to leave in the morning, you can. If you want to stay, I'm not going to kick you out. It's up to you," he said, then turned on his heel and walked towards his bedroom.

Roxas, Demyx, and I glanced at the brunette, who merely shrugged. He looked down at the floor, his fingers still tapping on his knee. As I looked, I noticed he was tapping every second, as if counting.

All of a sudden, Demyx heaved himself up from his spot on the floor beside my chair. With a stretch, he held his hand out to me. "Let me see your phone," he said.

I scoffed. "Where's yours?" I asked the blonde.

He grinned sheepishly. "At my place," he said. When he saw the look on my face, he jutted his lower lip out. "Please, Zexion? I'll get you your veggie pizza and I won't make fun of you for it!" he begged.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "And whose money are you going to pay for it with?"

He opened his mouth and shut it again, then offered a sly smile. "Yours?"

"You just got your paycheck, Demyx—pay with your own money," Roxas interrupted, causing Demyx to look back at the younger man and pout.

"You're supposed to be on my side, Rox!" he whined.

Roxas, in turn, laughed. "I'm not on anyone's side but my own," he told Demyx. He looked up at the clock hanging on the wall, and stood, stretching. "I'm off," he told us. "I have to get going."

"Where?" Demyx asked, momentarily forgetting his argument.

Roxas slid one shoe on and looked at the blonde. "Axel wants to meet up and get some ice cream."

Demyx looked at Roxas, his eyebrows wiggling. With a laugh, he asked the blonde, "_Just_ ice cream?"

With a roll of his eyes, Roxas slid his other shoe on and grabbed his jacket. "_Just_ ice cream," he confirmed. "He's got to be at work by eleven, though."

I looked at the fifteen year old and watched as his eyes lit up at the mention of the red head. I frowned. "Does your father know you're going to meet him?"

He paused, his eyes roaming towards mine. He had a guilty look on his face. "Not exactly, but you guys know. Besides, you know Axel's so overprotective that nothing bad will happen to me."

At my silence, the blonde laughed. Reaching over and hugging me shortly around the neck, he said, "It'll be three hours, tops. If I'm not back by at least half past eleven, you're more than welcome to call a search party." He waved goodbye just before walking out the front door, shutting it quietly behind him.

In seconds, Demyx sighed. "He has a point, Zex," he said. "Axel would probably cut his legs off himself before he'd let Roxas get hurt."

"I just don't like him spending so much time with Axel, that's all," I told him.

"You're only saying that because you know how Axel can be," he countered, his eyes rolling, "but you know he cares about Roxas enough to not let him get in trouble."

"Shut up and go order my pizza," I snapped, though not viciously. Demyx smiled at me and leaned down, pressing a kiss to my forehead before grabbing my cell phone and walking towards the kitchen.

"Hey, Leon!" he called quickly. "What kind of pizza do you like?"

The brunette looked at him and shrugged. "As long as it doesn't taste like dirt, I'll eat it," he told Demyx.

With a laugh, Demyx responded, "Pepperoni, it is."

I turned to the man sitting on the floor in front of me as he continued tapping his fingertips. His eyes were shut now, his head hanging as if he were falling asleep. In fact, had he not still been tapping each second with his hand, I would have assumed he _had_ fallen asleep.

While Demyx ordered the pizzas, I looked at Leon, trying to find somewhere the resemblance to the photos Sora had of him, but it was as if this man were completely different. There was no glow in his eyes and he appeared as though he hadn't genuinely smiled in a long time—which, I realized suddenly, may have been the case. His eyes were fierce, as if a wall were put up behind them. The most emotion I'd seen come from his eyes was when I told him about Sora, and he quickly concealed the feelings from his eyes.

Part of me wanted to call the younger brunette. It felt like an injustice towards him, knowing how furiously he tried to find his missing brother. It felt rude, knowing I had the source of Sora's unhappiness right in front of me. Not calling him immediately seemed insane.

But Leon looked equally, if not more, miserable that Sora had when I'd last seen him. Sora at least had Riku. He had a home and a good, steady life. He was bright, if a little naïve, and he was in a good place, living a good life. Leon, on the other hand, had nothing but what he carried around on his back, and he looked _exhausted_, both mentally and physically.

"You should stay for a few days," I told the man quietly.

He opened his eyes and looked at me silently. The look on his face clearly said _And why is that_?

I looked at him with a gentle smile. "You look like you could use the rest. Get a job with Cloud for a day or two, get some money; relax," I answered.

He snorted. "I'm fine," he answered, shutting his eyes once more, but his laugh sounded forced and his words were tight and I knew he was lying.

* * *

**A/N**:

I know I said when I posted the last chapter that I'd post this the day after I posted it, and that was the original plan, I swear! But I came to the decision to post a chapter on as I wrote a full chapter and honestly, this current chapter has had me so angry that I feel like scrapping the last two and rewriting them completely. That aside, here's the thought process I had behind this chapter:

Zexion and Demyx are my favourite characters of KH. Seriously. When I first found out about KH in the sixth grade, they were the first characters (along with Roxas) that I discovered. Zexion and Demyx were my first OTP. Before Harry Potter and before any other weird thing I've ever shipped, Zemyx was my first and the thing that introduced me to fanfiction in the first place. All this said, you bet your ass I'm taking pride in the Zemyx parts of this fic.

One of my major pet peeves when it comes to Zemyx fanfiction (or really any fanfiction that includes Zexion and Demyx) is how they're portrayed. Zexion is not an antisocial hermit obsessed with death and is perpetually suicidal and depressed. Demyx is not a stupid bubble-headed blonde who _only_ cares about music or art or water. It's a peeve for all the characters, actually, that people always write them based on what the fandom portrays them as instead of their actual personalities (Demyx as a blonde; Zexion as a depressed loner; Roxas and Sora as forever-happy naive little idiots; Axel as a perve; Marluxia as a fruitloop; etc.) so please disregard the character-personalities and shit.

I'm not 100% on how this chapter turned out because it's so short and I feel like I could've included it later in the story in favor of the fourth chapter but whatever. I needed to post something because I felt guilty!

_FINAL NOTE_:  
I did make a new dA. I have links on my profile, but be forewarned that it's primarily going to be pictures of my makeup. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to post writing shit on there; if I do, it'll probably only be oneshots or originals. But I know a lot of people prefer dA, so just know it's there!


	4. 4) Roxas

I walked through the empty streets calmly, glad that the town I lived in was so quiet that everyone was off of the streets by the time night fell. I looked around, embracing the silence and taking a deep breath.

And there was Axel, his entire presence obvious even if you didn't know him. He was nearly six feet tall and all skin and bones, his hair redder than a fire-truck, and his eyes were the colour of emeralds. Just looking at him, you knew he wasn't someone to mess with. The twenty-four year old never disregarded the rumors circling around him, instead acting on them occasionally just to keep people away from him. When he saw me, his face lit up, and he strode towards me, placing an arm around my shoulders.

"Managed to get away from Cloud?" he asked, his eyes wide and excited.

I laughed. "He worked too hard and went straight to bed."

"So does he know you're here?"

I shook my head. "No, but Zex and Demyx know, and so does Leon."

Axel frowned at the mentioning of the new man. "Something about him doesn't seem right."

"He's _homeless_," I pointed out.

He waved that off. "No, I mean aside from that. He just seems like a weird guy. He walked off when we were walking around earlier."

I laughed. "You're not exactly known for your caution around new people. He's a private guy."

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye and smirked. "Still, you'd think he'd at least wait for me. I saw Riku and was going to introduce them."

My eyes widened and I grinned. "Riku's in town?" I asked him excitedly.

Axel nodded. "So is Sora," he answered. "I ran into them when they were getting something to drink. They've been here since noon."

"Why didn't they come to visit at my house?"

He shrugged. "Riku probably wanted to get to his place and shower first. They came from the Islands, remember? They're jet-lagged from hell."

"Yeah, I forgot," I said. Then, I said, "Do you think Leon will stay to meet Riku?"

The red head looked at me and answered, "Probably. If he stays in town tomorrow, he will. I think he'd get along with Riku—they're both so evasive and broody, it's ridiculous. But I don't think he'd get along well with Sora."

I nodded. "Yeah, he seems so… serious. I mean, Riku's serious, too, but we at least know Riku has an immature side that rivals Sora's. Leon just seems _too_ serious."

We lapsed into silence for a few minutes as we walked through the streets, until Axel laughed. "What?" I asked him.

He chuckled. "I just realized—Sora's last name is Leonhart. Sounds like Leon," he told me.

I looked at the red head and shook my head, though a laugh burst through my lips. He shook his head. "Ah, tomorrow's going to be interesting if Riku and Sora come over while Leon's there."

I nodded. "It'll be something to see Sora and Leon go at it, you think?"

"Definitely," he laughed.

We walked in another silence, Axel's arm still wrapped lazily around my shoulders. It was comforting, though I didn't necessarily require the comfort. My day had been nice—I spent time with Hayner before joining up with Demyx and Zexion and going back to my house. I talked to them about Leon.

Something about him seemed extremely familiar.

Axel turned, leading me towards the Sandlot. The sight of the platform made me smile, and I ran forward and jumped on it, ignoring the steps that you were intended to take. The Struggle promoter recently placed a small chain-link fence around the perimeter of the platform in an attempt to reduce the number of injuries from people who fell during their Struggle match, and I easily jumped the short fence and rested against it. "Come sit with me," I told the red haired man.

He laughed, joining me on the fence. "As if I have any choice?" he asked.

I smiled. "None whatsoever," I said.

He rolled his eyes, a smile on his face. "So, Roxas—what did you want to talk about?" he asked me, and I felt the smile on my own face slip.

Shrugging, I looked down at the ground. "I feel like Hayner and the others are mad at me."

"Why would they be mad at you?" he asked me, his eyes confused. "You co-lead them with Hayner."

I suppressed a small laugh. "I don't know," I admitted. "Maybe I haven't spent as much time with them? They've all known each other since they were kids…."

Axel turned to look at me, his green eyes reflecting as if like a cat's and more serious that I'd seen them in a long time. "It's not your fault that you haven't known them since they were in the womb like they have."

"But…" I said, ducking my head, "they've all been friends for years. When I came, they just kind-of took me into their group. I think they're getting bored of me."

"Bored of _you_?" he asked incredulously. "Impossible, Roxas; face it: someone doesn't just 'get bored' of someone as cold and heartless as you. You get it from your dad. God knows we haven't gotten bored with him, and we've known him longer than you've known Hayner and them."

I laughed aloud at that and Axel put his elbow on my shoulder. "But you know, Hayner has been acting kind of weird. I haven't seen him with the other two lately."

"He's been walking around alone?" I asked him.

"From what I've seen, he has," the red head said. "It doesn't seem like him."

"That's because it _isn't_ like him," I said. Frowning, I told him, "He never walks around alone. He brings someone with him everywhere, because otherwise Seifer corners him."

Axel rolled his eyes. "I don't understand why you guys are so scared of him. He's only two years older than you and he's shit at fighting."

"_I'm_ not scared of him," I argued. "Hayner just refuses to let any of us go anywhere alone. He's convinced Seifer's out to get him."

"But _why_?" the red head asked.

"I don't know," I told him honestly. "Pence and Olette don't know either, or they haven't told me."

Axel frowned. "Maybe Seifer and Hayner had some kind of fight before you came, and they haven't gotten rid of the grudge?"

Despite myself, I snorted. "That implies they were friends at some point."

He shook his head. "When you fight with a friend, you can get pretty hostile towards them, refusing you ever had any ties with him or her, that kind of thing. It sounds like that's what's up with those two."

"What are you suggesting, Ax? We make them kiss and make up? This is all speculation, I hope you recall. We're probably ridiculously wrong about the whole thing."

He shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not," he said evasively. "Anyway, the kid's _your_ friend. If he's usually the kind of guy who never goes anywhere alone and now it's all he's doing, he may just have gotten over his fear of Seifer."

"Roxas?" a voice said, and I turned around to see the very same blonde Axel and I were talking about. "What are you doing out?"

"Talking to Axel," I told Hayner. He brushed a hand through his half-flattened wavy hair. His dark brown eyes seemed tired.

Axel seemed to notice, too. "Hey, kid, are you okay?"

"Mhm?" the blonde asked. "Yeah, yeah, I'm just tired. What time is it?" He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, as if trying to force his sleepiness out of him.

Axel glanced at his watch and cursed. "Ten 'til eleven—sorry, Roxas, but I have to go!" He grabbed my shoulders and squeezed before jumping down from the platform and running towards the Tram Common, where he worked at the hospital.

I looked at Hayner and waved him over, and he obliged with a tired look on his face. "I fell asleep in the Usual Spot after you and I finished talking and woke up at noon or something and went home. Mom and Dad kept screaming at me and I left."

I frowned. "Your parents are going crazy, Hayner," I told him.

He laughed humorlessly. "Yeah, tell me about it. They've been yelling at me for everything. Trash wasn't thrown out? Yell at Hayner. Light was left on in the living room? Yell at Hayner. Dad comes home smelling like cheap beer and sex? Yell at Hayner. Dad accuses mom of being a slut? Yell at Hayner." He dropped his head into his hands. "It's driving me mad."

I glanced at Hayner and frowned, placing my hand on his back. "You're sixteen. Two more years and they'll be out of your hair."

He curled his lips in a sad imitation of a smile. "That's easy for you to say; you've got it alright. Your dad, Zexion, Demyx, Axel—none of them fight like my parents. Your two years will go by like a few seconds. Mine will go by like ten years."

I rolled my eyes. "Two years is two years, Hayner. Blast your music and it'll go faster."

He shrugged, looking defeated. "I'm getting sick of it, Roxas."

Looking at him, I frowned. "Have you talked to Olette?" I asked him.

He stiffened. "No," he said shortly.

"She _is_ your girlfriend," I reminded him gently.

He snorted. "Yeah right; she'd rather be with Pence." He sighed. Glancing at me, he asked, "You wouldn't agree to let me smoke right now, would you?"

"It isn't good for you," I told him, my eyebrows furrowed. He shrugged, grabbing a lighter and a cigarette from the pack in his pocket, lighting it and taking a long drag from it.

"It takes my mind off of everything," he said after exhaling. "Mom, Dad, Olette, school, work—it makes it seem not as bad."

"Do you want to crash at my place tonight so you don't have to go back?" I asked the blonde seriously.

He looked at me and I noticed scattered bruises littering his arms. "I thought that homeless guy was staying at your house."

I rolled my eyes. "He's in the living room. If you crash at my place, you know my bed is big enough for the both of us."

He ran his free hand over eyes again, nodding. "Yeah," he said, "but I should probably grab some clothes first."

"Hayner, half of your crap is in my house anyways. Besides, you're not going back there until they've calmed down some."

He looked at me and smiled—a genuine smile, though it was shaky and small. "Thank you," he said seriously.

I looked away, fighting the heat that was rushing towards my face. "Shut up. You'd do the same for me."

"Yeah, probably," he admitted. "But thank you anyways."

"You're welcome," I said reluctantly, looking back towards my friend. I cleared my throat and stood up, grabbing Hayner's arm as I did so. "Come on; we have pizza."

"Pizza? I'll race you!" he said, immediately taking off in the direction of my house.

* * *

We got to my house in only a few minutes. Zexion and Demyx were cleaning the few dishes that were left on the counter when we arrived, out of breath and trying not to laugh too loud in case we woke someone (namely Dad) up. Zexion looked at us for only a moment before returning to his cleaning. Demyx took one look at us when we burst through the front door and laughed at us, causing Zexion to put his hand over Demyx's mouth because his laugh was louder than everyone else's combined.

Hayner and I grabbed a piece of pizza from the box left on the counter and ate hungrily. As we munched, Zexion asked, "Are you staying over, Hayner?"

"Yeah," he answered, covering his mouth to spare Zexion from seeing the chewed up pizza.

"Are your parents fighting again?"

"Did they ever stop?" he shot back, though his tone lacked any spite.

"Where are you going to sleep?" Demyx said, his brows furrowed.

I answered, "He's gonna sleep in my room. My bed's definitely big enough for both of us."

Zexion sighed. "You know I have nothing against you staying the night, Hayner, but I just want you to know, I doubt Cloud's gonna be in the mood for company in the morning."

"Why not?" he asked, eyes wide. "He's never been upset with me being here before, not even when I show up at four in the morning."

Demyx laughed at the boy. "He's probably going to be mad in general, not at you specifically—he overworked himself today, packing parts into some 'copters. He's going to be exhausted, and therefore cranky."

Hayner laughed. "When isn't he cranky?" he asked.

Before anyone else replied, I quickly swallowed my mouthful of pizza and said, "Guess what Axel told me!"

"He's proposing?" Hayner answered sarcastically, earning him a smack in the gut.

But before I could tell them about Riku and Sora visiting, Zexion shrugged us off. "Can you tell us in the morning, Roxas? I'm going to bed. You coming, Demyx?" he asked the blonde, who followed quickly behind, murmuring something about needing to shower first. I frowned at the two before looked over in the living room at Leon, who was sleeping on the couch.

Hayner looked at me, rolled his eyes and then grabbed my arm. "Come on, Rox; we know he's hot, but I'm exhausted."

I grinned at Hayner. "Is there something you're not telling me?" I asked the blonde jokingly.

He scoffed. "As if; he's not my type."

"Not to mention… ten years older," I said, pausing only to count the age difference between the two. He punched me in the shoulder before steering me towards my bedroom, laughing silently the entire way.

Only fifteen minutes later, the blonde and I both were lying down in my bed, wearing our pajamas, the both of us curled up in separate blankets due to the fact that we both were blanket-hogs.

It was quiet but comfortable. I watched as Hayner's eyes slowly slid shut and his breathing even out. His face relaxed as he fell asleep, and I wondered silently how many people had seen him so peaceful-looking. He was known for his sharp tongue and constant itch to fight someone, so he always wore a look of discontent on his face. It was rare that anyone saw him with a genuine smile on his face, or even a calm expression. He used to look at ease around Pence, Olette, and I, but lately, even with us, he rarely dropped his mask.

I frowned, thinking about what Axel had said about him walking around alone. It just didn't seem like something Hayner would do, after having known him since he was eleven. For five years, he refused to allow his friends to walk anywhere alone. He always joined us, or left with us, or dragged someone along with him. That someone was usually me, but I never complained. Hayner would make up for it by talking about something amusing that had happened to him, or he would make a joke about someone he'd met before.

The idea that Axel had planted in my head—that Hayner and Seifer were close at some point—seemed more ridiculous than anything else I'd thought of. When Hayner was in any close proximity of the taller beanie-wearing blonde, he was borderline homicidal. When Seifer saw Hayner, regardless of who was around him, he instantly began tormenting him. The last time it had had happened, Seifer ended up with a bloody nose and a mild concussion and Hayner with a busted lip and a fractured hand.

Looking at Hayner now, you wouldn't expect the blonde to be as violent as he was. But he wasn't really violent, when you thought about it. Every time he resorted to fighting, he was only doing it out of self-defense. Hayner never started a physical fight if he could help it.

Just then, the blonde grumbled, "Why are you staring at me?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I thought you were sleeping."

"You thought I was sleeping so you started staring at me?" he asked, his face confused.

I rolled my eyes. "I thought you were sleeping because you looked so… relaxed. It's been a while since you've looked like that. That's why I was staring."

The blonde grunted. Opening one brown eye, he said, "That's the gayest thing I've ever heard you say."

Scoffing, I turned so my back was facing Hayner. Then, after a few minutes of silence and I began dozing off, I heard him say quietly, "Can I ask you a question?"

Flipping back around to face him, I shrugged. "Of course," I said, my voice slurred slightly from having been nearly asleep.

He looked at the wall over my shoulder, avoiding my eyes. "How did you know you were gay?"

The question was just weird enough that it woke me up again, and I looked at my best friend with one eyebrow raised. "Why?" I asked him.

He didn't remove his gaze from the wall over my shoulder. "I just… can you answer me, and then I'll tell you?"

I frowned but said, "Well, how did you know you were straight?"

His groaned. "You're not helping," he said, burying his face in his pillow.

"I'm serious," I told him. "I've liked guys the way you've always liked girls. It's just something I've always known."

He raised his head just high enough to show one brown eye. "You're still not helping," I heard him mumble.

"You asked, I answered," I said with a shrug. "Besides, why are you suddenly interested in the subject of my sexuality?"

He raised his head a bit more, resting his cheek on the pillow. "I think I really like someone."

My eyes widened. "And judging from the question, this 'someone' is a guy?"

He nodded. Squeezing his eyes shut he buried his face in the pillow again. Hesitantly, I asked, "Who is it?"

I was barely able to understand what he uttered, only hearing the beginning of an "S". I frowned. "You have to actually tell me, Hayner. I can't understand you with your face shoved in the pillow."

Lifting his head but keeping his eyes squeezed shut, he said quickly, "Seifer," before attempting to suffocate himself again. Then I understood him mumbling, "Laugh at me and I'll break your face."

I looked at the blonde with wide eyes, my mouth hanging open, and the first thing I got out of my mouth was, "Seifer? The same guy who's nose you broke? The one who tries to jump you every time he sees you? _That_ Seifer?"

"Yes '_that_ Seifer'," he snapped. Picking his head up, he sat himself up and leaned against the wall I used as a makeshift headboard. He looked up at the opposite wall with conflicted eyes.

"We talked a few weeks ago. We were civil to each other," he said, his eyes avoiding mine.

I followed his actions and sat up, facing him instead of putting my back against the wall like he did. "What did you talk about?"

He didn't answer, instead looking down at the seams of his pajama pants. Then, after almost a minute, he said, "Mom and Dad were fighting again. They were screaming at each other and I was dragged in there. They started throwing insults at me and at each other, and I was trying not to hit either of them—so I left. I walked out of the house and started running the second I was out. I ran into Seifer. He was walking past my house when they were screaming. He… he didn't say anything, he just helped me up and ran after me."

I looked at Hayner, at the confusion that was obvious in his eyes. "But you said you two were talking."

He smiled for a second. Only a split second, though, and then the smile was gone, and he said, "We walked to the Usual Spot. He… well, long story short, he let me use him as a punching bag. Then he told me his parents were the same way. They would fight, and they would hit each other, and they would bring Seifer up during their fights, and sometimes they would hit him. And he asked if they'd ever hit me."

Hayner's eyes suddenly squeezed shut and I felt my heart drop to my stomach. "You never said they got violent," I said.

He shook his head. "Seifer doesn't hit me outside of Struggle matches. Rarely lays a finger on me," he said. "Everything else is _them_."

"Why haven't you ever told anyone?" I asked him.

He laughed mirthlessly. "Two grown adults with nothing showing they could be abusive versus their sixteen year old son with a knack for getting into fights? You're smart, Roxas—do the math."

"Well, what did Seifer say?" I asked him, changing the subject.

He sighed. "He said almost the same thing you did, kinda. He said to call the authorities, but he also said he knew they wouldn't do shit. So he said if I ever needed a place to stay then to call him, and he gave me his number."

With sad eyes, I looked at the dirty blonde and studied his pain-stricken face. "So is that why you've been walking around alone lately?" I asked him.

His eyebrows knit together in confusion. "You've noticed that?"

"Axel and I both did," I said. "We were talking about you before you showed up. Well, first we were talking about you and Pence and Olette, but then you became kind of the focal point of the conversation."

He snorted, and then he nodded. "Yeah, I guess that is why. Seifer used to always harass me when he saw me alone. Of course, that was two or three years ago, but still. There were some times when we'd get into a fight, but not very often. I just haven't wanted to risk it because I didn't want to get into another fight. But since we talked, I… haven't felt the need anymore."

I was quiet after he said that. Part of me wanted to ask him if he and Seifer had in fact been close at some point, but I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. Hayner pulled his knees to his chest and rested his forehead on them, wrapping his arms around his legs. I slowly moved towards him, sat beside him, and pressed my arm against his.

He leaned towards me, his head still in his knees and arms around his legs, but he began trembling. I awkwardly placed my arms around him, noting how warm he was despite not having been underneath the blanket and leaning against my cold wall. Hayner said nothing. He didn't utter a word or make a single noise, but I could feel the occasional tear hit my arm.

We stayed like that until he eventually fell asleep, maybe an hour later. By then it was already one in the morning, but I wasn't tired anymore. I took a deep breath and looked at the now-calm face of Hayner, and after wiping the last remnants of his tears off of his cheeks, I carefully stood up and placed my blanket over him. I looked at him one last time before grabbing my shoes and a light jacket.

I went to the kitchen first, only turning on the light over the sink so I could see what I was doing. I started a pot of coffee and got my own cup out, waiting for the pot to be full enough for me to turn it off and get it in my stomach. I sat on the stool that was by the counter and looked at my hands, thinking about Hayner, trying to process what he'd told me.

He was being abused by his family. He told me that. At least the last set of injuries he'd gotten weren't from Seifer after all, but from his family. I wondered idly how Seifer got his own set of injuries, if they hadn't been caused from a fight with Hayner.

Seifer knew Hayner was being abused and offered to provide him with his house if he needed it. Did that mean Hayner had taken him up on that offer? The brown-eyed blonde had said that Seifer made the offer a few weeks ago, and I knew that his parents had definitely fought since then. When Zexion had asked if they were fighting again, Hayner had replied with "_Did they ever stop_?". Their fighting was constant and never-ending, and when Hayner was around he was brought in the fight. In the time following his encounter with Seifer, did he ever actually call the taller blonde and stay with him?

Hayner liked Seifer enough that he asked me how I knew I was gay. He was questioning his own sexuality because of Seifer. I thought of Seifer and how _he_ would stand on this, but I knew I didn't know the other teenager well enough to know how he'd stand on _anything_. Did _Hayner_ know him well enough then, that _he'd_ know what Seifer felt about all of this?

Knowing that the older blonde used to be in the same situation as Hayner was going through came into my mind and I contemplated that. I recalled that when I was thirteen, it had been a big topic around town when the Almasy couple announced they were separating. Seifer had only been fifteen at the time. Beyond that, though, there was no mentioning of him or his family.

I was startled when the coffee pot suddenly beeped, reminding me that I had been making myself a cup and I stood to pour the liquid in my mug, followed by some sugar and a small amount of milk. I sat back down and glanced at the clock: one thirty AM. I looked in the living room, sighing when I saw Leon lying flat on his back, his eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

I took one last gulp of my coffee and walked towards the front door. Leon's eyes glanced over and met mine, and I said quietly, "If I'm not back in an hour or two, I'll be back with Axel when he comes around in the morning. Not that I think Dad or anyone else will be up in before he gets here, but just in case."

He nodded shortly and watched as I walked out of the front door and shut it quietly behind me.

The hospital was only fifteen minutes away from my house, and because he was always complaining at the lack of things to do during the night shift, I knew he usually hid in one of the lesser-known rooms and crashed for a few hours until he was allowed to leave. One of his coworkers, a man named Marluxia who brought in fresh flowers for the patients every Saturday night, always said to find him if I needed Axel, and he'd show me where the red-haired man was sleeping and wake him up for me.

I walked quietly, my hands deep in my pockets. It was silent, save for the crickets chirping in the grass I walked on. The silence was calming. It, along with the chilly air, cleared my head and made it easier to think. I didn't think about Hayner and Seifer, though. I thought about the walk to the hospital, and I focused only on actually making my way to Marluxia's garden-truck.

When I neared the large building, I quickly saw the pink-haired man's flower-filled truck. He'd converted the bed of it into a small garden, filled with flowers of every kind and every colour. Looking around, I found him in the driver seat, on the phone with someone. Tentatively, I knocked on the window. He stopped midsentence, saw me and grinned.

"Good_bye_, Vex—" I heard him say before hanging up. "Roxas! It's been a while since I've seen you. How are you?" he asked me, exiting his vehicle and smiling at me.

"I'm good," I said, then cleared my throat. "Do you happen to know where Axel is?"

He laughed. "No, but I can look for him, just let me grab some flowers so I can drop them off."

"Can I help?" I asked him.

"I don't see why not," he said, shrugging. Handing me two thin vases, he filled them with a single yellow rose each and poured a few inches of his rose-water in the vases. Doing the same to two more vases, he nodded for me to follow him inside the building.

"So what are you doing out at two in the morning?" he asked me curiously.

I shrugged, looking around the vacated waiting room. "I couldn't sleep, and Axel's working tonight."

He looked at me sideways. "Does your dad know you're out?"

I shook my head. "I'll be back home before he wakes up. And besides, this is Axel we're talking about. He and I are probably just going to make fun of people all night."

He laughed. "Well, yeah, but your dad should probably know where you are."

"I'll call him when it isn't two in the morning and tell him," I told him sarcastically.

The man shook his head before looking pointedly at the room to my left. "One of those vases should go in there, right on the nightstand." I obeyed silently, trying not to disturb the sleeping patient. I rejoined Marluxia in the hallway, and he began walking again. "You know he'd go nuts if he woke up and you weren't there."

"I know," I said with a sigh "but I couldn't sleep. My mind's worked up."

He nodded. "I know what you mean. I haven't been able to sleep all week. I'm running on about six cups of coffee right now."

Looking at Marluxia, I frowned. "Why don't you take off and relax?"

He shrugged. "There are people who love waking up to fresh flowers every weekend. If I take off to sleep, those people won't get their flowers. I feel bad enough when I get sick and _have_ to stay home."

"Yeah, but you could have someone else pass the flowers out."

He snorted. "I wouldn't trust my own obsessive-compulsive boyfriend near my flowers."

"You have trust issues," I told him jokingly.

He laughed. Pausing slightly to look at the room beside him, he entered and reemerged with one vase in his hand. He grabbed the extra vase in my own hand and walked on, and I followed quickly.

Looking in the waiting room ahead of us, Marluxia sighed. "He's passed out in there." Setting the two vases down on the receptionist's desk, he grinned before lying down nearly on top of Axel. Glancing at me with a wicked glint in his eyes, he bent low and whispered in Axel's ear, too low for me to here.

In only a few seconds, Axel's green eyes were wide open and he yelped, causing Marluxia to fall on top of the red head's body, laughing hysterically. Axel pushed the other man off of him, which made Marluxia fall on his back on the floor, but he was laughing too hard at Axel's reaction. Axel's wide eyes moved to mine and they changed from shock to confusion.

"Roxas? What are you doing here? And why did Marluxia just lick my ear? What time is it? Is it morning?" he looked at his watch and cursed, glaring down at Marluxia who continued to laugh, but was beginning to stand back up.

"My job here is done," he laughed. Looking at me, he waved as he turned around and left.

Axel looked at me again and his eyes were wide and confused. "It's two in the morning, Rox—why did Marluxia lick my ear?"

I grinned. "I asked if he knew where you were sleeping, and he brought me here. He woke you up for me. I didn't think he'd do it _that_ way, though. I thought he was whispering in your ear."

He glared at me. "No, he licked my goddamn ear." Standing up and stretching, he said, "But still, why are you here?"

"I couldn't sleep," I told him, frowning. "Why are you and Marluxia so concerned with why I'm out? I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"What about Cloud? Or Zexion, or Demyx?" he asked, though his voice lacked any conviction.

I shook my head. "They're all asleep. Leon knows I'm here, though."

"Roxas," he said, rolling his eyes, "You shouldn't put your faith in him. We don't know anything about him."

"What's your point?" I asked the red head. "I needed to talk to someone and I knew you'd come and visit us in the morning so you could take me back when you head over there."

"'_Needed_ to talk to someone'?" he repeated.

I looked up at him with a glare. "If you're going to make fun of me and yell at me for coming to visit you, I'm leaving."

He laughed. "Calm down," he said, "I'm just worried about you. What do you mean you 'needed to talk to someone'?"

Frowning, I looked in his green eyes. "Hayner—he… he told me what's been going on."

Seeing my concerned face, Axel dropped his grin. Looking around, he pulled me to the couch he'd been sleeping on and looked at me with as much concern on his face as there probably was on mine.

Quietly, I relayed to him all that Hayner had told me. I left out a few things, like Hayner asking me about his sexuality and what he felt (or didn't feel) for Seifer, but I told Axel about everything else. I watched as his face became graver and graver until he looked as though he'd aged five years.

"Don't let him know I told you any of this," I told Axel seriously. "I don't think he's told anybody else, but I needed to tell someone, and since you're probably my best friend right after Hayner, and I know you wouldn't go around telling everyone, I just figured you were the right person to tell."

He shrugged. "He's a good actor then. I wouldn't have guessed any of that just by looking at him."

Sighing, I nodded. "Every time we see him with a new bruise or a splint or something, we just assume he got into another random fight. Sometimes he says he fought with Seifer, but he said Seifer never touches him outside of Struggle matches."

Axel sighed. "Is he at your place now?" he asked.

"Yeah, he passed out after crying for an hour," I said, rubbing my own eyes to rid them of their tiredness. "He's sleeping in my room."

Cursing under his breath, Axel ran a hand through his hair. "Sad to say it, but the kid has a point. The authorities in this town suck enough as it is. If we go to them and say he's getting hit, they won't do a thing about it even if they do believe us."

"That's reassuring," I said.

He waved his hands in the air, as if saying _What am I supposed to do?_. He looked at his watch. "You need sleep, Roxas. I'm going to take you home before your dad gets up and kicks my ass."

Groaning, I asked, "Why can't I just stay here and go back with you in the morning?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Seriously?" he asked. "You want me to risk my life against _Cloud_?"

"It isn't like he'd do anything to you. I left of my own free will."

"You're fifteen, Roxas. You're still a minor," he said, his eyes clenched as he fought a smile. "If anything happened to you, he'd kick both our asses—yours for leaving the house in the middle of the night and mine for _letting_ anything happen to you."

"He'd get over it," I said grudgingly, but I knew Axel was right.

Knowing he won the argument, he stood and stretched, grinning as he looked back down at me. "Walk or I'll carry you," he said simply, and I shot up and followed him out of the building.

* * *

**A/N**:

Yeah yeah, two chapters in one night. I figured that because chapter 3 was so short, you guys deserves something more substantial.

Also, right behind Zemyx, AkuRoku is my #2 ship. It's tied with RiSo.

So, just as a reference, I actually keep a small table-thing of all the main characters that will be in this fic at the bottom of my document with their ages. Here is this table-thing:

Cloud: 32  
Leon: 26 (six years)

Sora: 22  
Riku: 24 (two years)

Roxas: 15  
Axel: 24 (nine years)

Zexion: 28  
Demyx: 25 (three years)

Seifer: 17  
Hayner: 16 (one year)

It's nothing crazy, but it is nice if you're ridiculous like me and hate not knowing the ages (especially when age is a main factor in this fic). The year-differences in parentheses are, obviously, the age differences between the two characters and their designated other-half for this fic. Don't ask for how I'm going to skirt around the nine year difference of Axel and Roxas-I'm working on it. Well, I have a rough idea but I haven't gotten there yet so yeah.

I'm off; leave a review and I'll try to respond tomorrow!


	5. 5) Leon

When Roxas left, I wanted to ask if he was okay. He seemed tense and stressed, unlike how he'd been any other time I'd seen him. I wanted to ask where the other teenager was, Hayner, but I kept quiet and let him do what he was going to do. When he walked out and said he was going to be back soon, I let him go, not wanting to further complicate whatever he was thinking about. He returned only two hours later, quietly saying goodnight to the red-head I walked away from, then proceeded his own room.

It was difficult, trying to figure out whether or not I wanted to stay in TwilightTown. Roxas had made a good point: I _didn't_ have much money left, and it was aggravating knowing he was right. I wondered how much longer I would've lasted if I took off while they all were sleeping, but I knew that it would only mean being stranded with my parents if I managed to work up the nerve to visit them.

But if I stayed in TwilightTown for any amount of time and worked, I would require some kind of temporary housing. As kind as Roxas and his father were, I doubted they would allow me to sleep in their living room for a month while I got enough money to get back on the road. But the fact remained that there simply was no hotel or motel in this town, so it made it nearly impossible to stay.

My thoughts drifted to Sora, as they had a tendency to do when I allowed myself to relax enough to think. He was twenty two years old, and living with his boyfriend, as Zexion had said. I wondered somewhat what kind of man he fell in love with—if he was as sweet as Sora, or if he was cynical and pessimistic like Sora wasn't. Did Sora love him because of those reasons, or did this guy have a secretive side that he only let Sora see? It seemed like, with Sora, that seemed more likely. He always liked those kinds of relationships.

I slowly could sense myself drifting off to sleep, my mind going over the memories of the last seven years in a blurred and confusing way. I saw the faces of everyone I'd met meld into another, repeating things they'd said to me in voices that were nightmarish versions of their real-life counterparts.

It was the kind of dream that I knew I would forget by the time I woke up so I knew it was pointless to put too much thought into it, but I couldn't help but feel almost irritated at my own anti-social behaviour. There was no one in seven years that I opened up to, no one I even told my real name to. There were several people who offered to listen and some who said they didn't care about my past so long as I kept in touch with them. I never saw them more than twice.

* * *

I woke up not soon after due to it being eight and Axel bursting through the living room, yelling in a sing-song voice, "_Strife_! Get your ass up!"

He grinned at me momentarily before saying, "He hates when I do this. I'm trying to set a record for the shortest amount of time it takes for him to throw something at me or hit me."

I nodded confusedly, though not long afterwards both the Strifes' and the other teenage boy were in the living room, the younger two wiping sleep from their eyes while Cloud was positively turning red with anger. Only a few seconds later, Zexion and Demyx were in the living room, Zexion's face displaying as much obvious fury as Cloud's.

Axel laughed at the expression on his and the older blonde's face and turned quickly towards Roxas, who was holding his hand to his mouth as if trying to quell the laughter. I looked quickly at Zexion, who now was encircled in Demyx's arms, almost like the taller man knew what he wanted to do.

Axel cleared his throat. "Now that I have your attention, I have an announcement to make," he said, and he straightened his posture, placing a fisted hand behind his back. Taking a few steps backwards and placing his open hand on the doorknob, he said, "Riku is back in town!"

And not a millisecond later, he gave a quick turn on the knob and there stood two men, one tall with long silver hair and aquamarine eyes and the other with short brown hair and eyes as blue as the sky.

Demyx was the first to react, giving a squeal of delight and running towards the two, letting go of Zexion. "Riku! Sora! Why didn't you guys call and tell us—we would've met you and saw you in town—when did you get in? How long have you been here?" he rambled, pulling the two into his arms and squeezing them tightly.

I watched Sora with wide eyes, my body frozen. He looked the same as he did when he was fifteen, though much taller and slightly thinner. He'd lost his baby-fat and his cheekbones were more visible, and his eyes had matured, though they held the same childlike innocence as they had before. He grinned and held Demyx, laughing as the other man talked.

Cloud was second to react, his face fading to a normal shade, his anger receding, and he partially smiled, his eyes meeting the silver haired man's in welcome. He walked over and hugged him shortly, ruffling Sora's hair in the process, earning an irritated grunt from the brunette.

I heard Zexion give a sharp intake of breath, but my eyes wouldn't move from Sora. He didn't move either, or at least not that I could see from my peripheral vision. Roxas and Hayner both moved to hug the two newcomers, though Roxas didn't look nearly as surprised as the other patrons of his household.

Slowly, Sora looked around the room, and his eyes met Zexion's. He looked at the blue haired man with a pout on his face. "Aw, Zexion, why so surprised? It's not like Axel didn't tell you we were coming—he ran into us yesterday and said he was going to tell you guys!" He put his hands on the shorter man's shoulders and grinned. "What's got you so worked up, Zex?" he asked.

As if waiting for Sora to ask that question, his visible navy eye flickered towards mine. Sora glanced in my direction for only a moment before turning back to Zexion. Then he looked back slowly, his eyes wide, as recognition hit him.

As everyone settled down it quieted, everyone else having finished saying their hellos and greetings. Everyone in the room was watching Sora and I, no doubt looking to one another in hopes of finding out if anyone else knew what was going on.

I was only looking at Sora, at his big blue eyes that portrayed just how confused he was. He took one step towards me just as I stood up.

"Sora—" I said gruffly, my voice thick and coarse, sounding as though I hadn't spoken in weeks.

The brunette's eyes snapped back up to mine and he smiled, his eyes sparkling. He ran the distance of the living room and launched himself at me, his arms wrapping around my chest and his head resting in my neck. Ignoring (or maybe forgetting about) the seven other people in the room, I enveloped Sora in my own arms and rested my head in his hair.

"Squall," he mumbled, his voice thick. Then, picking his head up to reveal shining eyes, he smiled again. "It's been seven years, and you're _here_?" He looked back and forth between my eyes, and he laughed. "You look different! Your hair's longer, and your eyes—when did they get so grey? They were always blue! Not like mine, but you know, they weren't grey. Where have you been?"

He gasped suddenly, his features taking on a look of anger. "You jackass!" he suddenly yelled, and he curled his hand into a fist and punched me soundly in the jaw. Cloud and the silver-haired man started forward in an attempt to pull Sora away from me, but I found myself laughing and Sora quickly dropped his hand, chuckling awkwardly. Then he hugged me tightly again, and he whispered an apology in my ear.

Distantly, I heard Zexion say a shocked, "Leon is Sora's older brother. I didn't know you guys were visiting, or I would've told him…."

Sora pulled back, glancing at Zexion with confused eyes. "Who's Leon? This is Squall."

Coughing, I murmured, "I've been going by Leon since I left home."

He looked at me and narrowed his eyes, saying, "Why haven't you just gone by your real name?"

"I didn't want people knowing who I was," I told him simply.

Sticking his tongue out at me, he looked back towards everyone else. With a grin on his face, he moved his hands towards me as if I were a trophy and he was the presenter. "Gentlemen, this is my brother whose real name is Squall Leonhart."

The silver haired man—Riku—stepped forward. Noticing Sora's pink-tinged face as he looked at the man, I stood and faced him.

"You're the guy who abandoned Sora?" he asked, his face cold.

I looked him evenly in the eyes. "I didn't abandon anyone."

His aqua eyes flashed. "You left Sora," he said.

I felt anger rise in me, and I said in as even a voice as I could manage, "I was kicked out of my own home. I didn't leave Sora."

"It's been seven years!" he snarled. "You've had seven years to go back and you didn't!"

Fighting the urge to hit the silver haired man, I looked around the room. Zexion looked like he would have ran as far as possible had Demyx not still been holding him in his arms again. Hayner, Roxas, and Axel stared with wide eyes at Riku, who was visibly shaking with anger. Sora looked back and forth between his boyfriend and I, his eyes horrified. Cloud, however, stared at me, his blue eyes worried but calming.

I returned my eyes back to Riku's. His fists were clenched at his sides, both of them shaking as he fought the urge to hit something. I took a deep breath and said to him, "I'm not fighting you. Sora loves you. I haven't seen him in seven years because I'm a coward and was too weak to go back home. Hit me if you want to, but I'm not fighting you back."

"No one is hitting anyone in my house," Cloud interrupted. Stepping between Riku and I, he looked at Sora. "Are you okay?" he asked the brunette.

"I'm fine," Sora answered, his voice small and eyes wide. Cloud gave him a look that clearly said otherwise, but turned to look at Riku.

"I've known you for years, Riku, and I know you would kill anyone who hurt someone you love, but _calm down_. Sora clearly doesn't feel negatively towards Leon, so back off of him."

Riku glared at the blonde man, his eyes narrowed and his face pale with anger. Slowly, he relaxed his stance, though he didn't calm the rage in his eyes. Cloud, on the other hand, turned to face me, his eyes forcing a strange calmness inside me.

"Leon… Squall, whatever," he said, "my offer still stands. If you want to stay here, you can stay; if you want to leave, I'm not stopping you. But if you stay, there will _no_ fighting under this roof." His eyes met mine and he stared unblinkingly at me until I nodded.

Sora looked back and forth between Cloud and I before saying, "Riku has a spare room. He can stay with us." He gave Riku a hard look before looking at me. "If you want to, that is."

Sora's eyes looked into mine and I recognized fear deep down in them. I gave him a soft smile that I knew showed mostly in my eyes. "He doesn't trust me," I told him, referring to Riku. "I'll stay here until he does."

His face fell, but he recovered quickly. Smiling, he grabbed my hand. "You're coming with me and we're going to talk about everything that's happened, okay?" he said. Immediately, he pulled me out of the house, leaving Riku and everyone else staring at us with confused—and infuriated—eyes.

* * *

**A/N**:

So it's been, what, a little over two weeks since the last update? I'm sorry! I do have a legit reason though, so hear me out: School. Today (August 28) marks the middle of the second week. Between it, family, and trying to manage Bella (who, after being cooped up in my bedroom from 7am to 4pm, is outrageously, ridiculously hyper), I'm just exhausted by the end of the day. I _have_ been, writing, though, so fear not!

I know this chapter is crazily short and I'm sorry, but I think I subconsciously did it to counterbalance with the next chapter which is crazily long. I may tweak it a bit more once I finish editing what I currently have, but I can't see myself getting the time to do it with school. Plus my birthday is this Monday and we're going out of town Sunday (or Saturday; haven't decided which) for my birthday dinner.

So, I want to ask a question that is completely unrelated to this fanfiction other than giving me prompt ideas for oneshots/originals. I read _An Abundance of Katherines_, _Paper Towns_, and _Looking For Alaska_ last week. The author of all three, of course, being John Green of vlogbrothers. And oh god, have any of you read them? Because if you _haven't_, you **need** to, long with _The Fault In Our Stars_ (which, coincidently, just started filming for the movie!). So good. Seriously.

Anyway, I'm leaving now so I can go back to editing and also leave the a/n from getting longer than the chapter itself. As always, reviews are welcome but not a necessity. c:


	6. 6) Hayner

**A/N**_: Okay, so I know I said I wouldn't say things in the beginning of fics but I need to clarify this for my paranoia: I've never written in Hayner's point of view before and now that I've written in his pov, I can very easily say he's a pain in the ass to try to write. If he seems ridiculously out of character or something along those lines, I honestly am so sorry! Also, potentially trigger warning? I've never been in or known anyone in a physically abusive household, so I'm kinda guessing a lot. Okay; more in-depth update at the end of the fic!_

* * *

It wasn't easy being surrounded by people who fought day after day. It wasn't fun or amusing being caught in the arguing and hitting. Hearing people say it was interesting or romantic or something they wanted to have happen to them made me want to hit them upside the head until they were unconscious. It _wasn't_ interesting and if you _wanted_ to be stuck in an abusive household, you had issues that needed to be talked out with a psychiatrist.

It had been going on since I was little. I would go to sleep and hear every word they yelled at each other. Every curse and profanity echoed around in the hallway and made its way into my bedroom. Sometimes I would crawl out of my window and hide in the alley that I made my own.

When I got older, old enough to be able to understand what was going on, they would bring me into all of it. Everything they said that used to be directed at one another was then directed at me. The stench of alcohol and cigarettes never fully vacated our house, and late at night was when it was at its worst. I tried running away, but there was nowhere to go and I was forced to stay in the abusive household.

In an attempt to mask the bruises and sprained or broken bones, I would fight someone and blame them for the injuries. It was usually Seifer. Only a year older than me, he had no issues with beating me to a pulp. He fought until his own knuckles were bloodied and broken, his eyes sometimes swollen to the point of being unable to see.

The fight that stopped it all was when my parents both began hitting me. Before then, it was always one hitting me while the other yelled at me. I walked out the second the fists let up on me, and I ran as soon as I reached my front door, right into the beanie-wearing teenager.

He said nothing when he helped me stand and ran after me when I took off. I didn't know which direction I was running in, but at the same time I was too busy trying not to fall apart. I was breathing hard and fast, almost hyperventilating. When I finally slowed down enough for Seifer to catch up with me, he put his hands on my shoulders and told me to calm down. He steadied his own breathing and I attempted to match mine with his. I managed to after ten minutes, after Seifer led me into my usual hideout.

He stared at me, his eyes narrowed for a few seconds. Then he grunted, his eyes not meeting mine. "If you think I'm going to give you hell for getting hit by your family, I'm not going to. I went through the same shit. If you want to talk about it, I can listen. If you want to hit me, that'd be better. I don't _do_ feelings very well."

"You went through this too?" I asked him, trying to find it in myself to sound angry but failing.

He glared at me. "What do you think happened to me a few years ago? My parents split. I was the casualty of two asses getting married and fighting every day."

I looked at him, finally feeling myself return to normal. Angrily, I snapped, "Sorry about your home life, but I don't know what you're talking about."

I stood up, intending to walk out when he stood and grabbed my wrist. "Don't be an idiot," he snarled. "You're in the same mess I was in."

Staring up at the taller teenager, I narrowed my eyes and told him, "I'm _fine_. Let me go."

Tightening his grip, Seifer groaned, his eyes clenching with agitation, and hissed, "Just hit me."

Not thinking twice, I clenched my free hand into a fist and punched him on the cheekbone. He released my other wrist and I took the opportunity to hit him again. He never fought back, instead pulling his forearms over his face and allowing me to take my frustrations out on him. I hit him until I heard a sharp _crack!_ in my hand, and at that point I stopped and leaned against the opposite wall, sliding down and holding my injured hand on my knee.

Seifer crouched down in front of me, wincing slightly in the process. He took my injured hand in his own and sighed when I flinched. "You can blame it on fighting me and your bloody lip too. Pretend I hit you, and you hit me," he said calmly.

I glowered at the blonde as he began wrapping my hand in a strip of gauze found on one of the tables in the Usual Spot. He looked at me with his blue eyes hooded under his brows as he continued wrapping my hand.

Grudgingly, I nodded. I stayed quiet as he finished and tied the gauze. He looked at me with his cerulean eyes and sighed. Pulling his eyebrows together in an angry look, he said, "What are you staring at?"

I shook my head. "Why are you being nice?"

"I can go back to being a dick if you want," he said, though halfheartedly. His eyes glanced down at my arms and the yellowing bruises scattered across them.

"No, that's not what I meant," I said grudgingly. I took a deep breath, only slightly thankful that I'd calmed down enough to not want to hit him again. "Why are you being nice to me? You're usually a dick but you're not right now. I don't understand why."

He picked his head up and snapped, "I have my reasons, chicken wuss."

"You're the shithead who brought all this shit up," I argued.

"You're the dumbass who ran into me!" he yelled.

Glaring at him, I yelled back, "You're the bitch who followed me here and told me to hit you!"

The two of us stood and he pushed me back towards the wall. "You're the dick who had to get fucking _abused_," he hissed.

I looked at him and saw the sudden regret in his eyes. He groaned and, turning around, he fisted his hand and hit the cement wall as hard as he could. It began bleeding almost immediately, the rough surface having broken the skin on his knuckles. He pulled his arm back slowly, breathing heavily.

"I'm not going to tell anyone about this. I won't tell any adults because they wouldn't do anything anyways. I won't tell your friends because they hate me. I won't tell _my_ friends because they wouldn't believe me. It'll be a secret between us," he told me unenthusiastically.

I looked at the blonde and grimaced. "Why should you care?"

He frowned at me, his expression on the cusp of irritation. "I care because I know how you're feeling, you idiot. And… if you need a place to stay," he said, "because they're fighting… just come over to my place."

I looked at him and scowled. "But you hate me," I said confusedly.

To my surprise, Seifer snorted. "I've never hated you, chicken wuss. I just love pissing you off."

He turned around and began making his way towards the exit of the spot just as I blurted, "Where do you live?"

Glancing back at me, he waved with his good hand towards the stack of papers on one of the tables. "I wrote it down with my phone number while you were freaking out. But don't start calling me every other second—I may not _hate_ you, but that doesn't mean I _like_ you." Not a moment later, he left, leaving me to myself.

After that particular meeting, it was a few days later that I showed up at Seifer's doorstep and he was shoving me inside his front door. He mumbled and cursed under his breath as he looked me over, noting a few new bruises, a swelling eye, and my bleeding arm. He forced me onto one of his couches and went to his kitchen, grabbing a bag of frozen peas and wrapping it in a towel, pressing the bag in my good hand roughly.

"I didn't know you had a caring side, Seifer," I sneered, trying not to wince as he began assessing the scratches along my forearm.

Looking up at me with a raised eyebrow, he grunted. "Shut your goddamn mouth or you're on your own," he said, returning to my arm. He had a pair of tweezers in one hand and a flashlight in the other. "What the fuck happened?" he asked me.

I winced as he pulled a small shard of glass from my skin. "I was pushed against a table with a vase. It fell and broke. I was pushed me down on the pieces."

He winced, though he seemed to have tried to hide it, and he pulled another shard out. "If I thought they would do something, I'd tell you to tell the cops or go to the hospital and report them," he said. "Problem is, they would tell you to piss off."

I looked at him and grinned. "I doubt they'd actually tell me to piss off."

He chuckled. "Nah, they wouldn't be as eloquent."

We spent nearly an hour bantering back and forth as he pulled fragments of glass from the cuts in my arm. We got along surprisingly well, despite the fact that we both insulted the other in every other sentence. When finally my arm was glass-free and the swelling in my eye had gone down, Seifer grabbed a warm, damp towel and cleaned the blood from my arm and wrapped it up, much like he did my knuckle the previous time.

He told me I could sleep on his couch. When I joked about sleeping in his bed, he shoved me down and dropped a blanket over my head.

It seemed like every other night after that I spent my time at Seifer's house. Every time he bandaged the new injuries I bore, though none were as bad as the first night's. With every night we sent together, the blonde opened up more about him to me.

"My parents split a few years ago," he told me quietly. "They were almost as bad as your parents are. Every day, from morning to night, all I heard was screaming and fighting. They only stopped when they divorced."

I watched the blonde and saw when his blue eyes shut against the memories. He winced slightly before leaning back against his couch, shrugging into a more comfortable position. He opened one eye to glance at me. "This used to be their house. When they divorced, they left me here to go to other places."

"You mean you've been alone here for two years?" I asked the blonde.

He snorted. "Haven't I made it obvious I'm perfectly capable of being on my own?" he retorted. "I'm seventeen—I know how to take care of myself. You, on the other hand, clearly don't," he joked. He grinned, not bothering to look down at me.

I watched him closely after that. For the next week after that, I ended up at his house more than not, sometimes as early as noon. I'd gotten to the point where I didn't go home save to change clothes and shower, and then I either left to go to Seifer's or walked around with Roxas, Pence, and Olette.

The more time I spent with him, the more… tolerable he was. He stopped being just a punching-bag or cover-up for my bruises, and he started being an actual friend. No, I wouldn't have told anyone even if I wanted to, but the blonde had a good sense of humor and, damn him, he was good company. He saw me as just being "his favourite chicken-wuss" who crashed in his living room a lot, not caring excessively about my presence but not ignoring me entirely either. He didn't change his daily habits for my benefit—which I learned quickly when he woke me up the next morning to music blaring in my ears while he made breakfast in the kitchen, wearing only boxers. But it was comforting, almost, that he was comfortable enough around me to go about his business as usual.

He didn't tell me what to do or how to do it. He never made me get up and leave and he trusted me in his house when he wasn't there—that, or he just didn't care about me being there. In fact, he was actually nice. I didn't expect that. He always had his edge to him. He always had a sarcastic and witty comeback for everything I said, and he was never hesitant to tell me what he was thinking, however off-the-wall it was. I even found myself enjoying being around him.

When the day came where I walked into the Usual Spot and found a man lying on our couch. I watched him for a few minutes, trying to be as quiet as possible as I looked to see if he had any weapons. His arms and face were tan and on the verge of sun-burnt but clean and clear otherwise. Aside from a few specks of dirt scattered over his clothes, the odd stain, and greasy hair, he seemed clean and well maintained. I could see the veins and muscles in his arms even as he slept, despite his relaxed position.

When I called Roxas, Pence, and Olette, the three easily came to the same conclusion I had: he was harmless, even if he looked as though he could easily take all of us out. Roxas told him to either stay at his house where he could get a warm place to sleep and a shower or risk getting hit by Seifer—I said nothing during his latter statement, knowing anything I said would've given me funny looks.

I walked back to Seifer's house after meeting Leon to find him fresh out the shower, wearing only his signature baggy purple pants and boots, a small towel in his hand as he dried his hair. He rolled his eyes upon seeing me and waved me in, where I told him about the brunette man.

He chuckled at the statement Roxas had made about him, but shrugged. "If he was as tough as you say he looked, I wouldn't have even tried," he'd said.

The following day, Seifer joined me on my then-daily walk to change clothes and to check in with my parents. He stood outside the front door when I went in. I almost hoped that my parents were gone, or at the very least too drunk to function, but when I reemerged from my bedroom with my bag packed of clean clothes, it wasn't long before they saw me.

It was much the same as it seemed my every other encounter with them went: one of them would ask, "Where have you been?" and I would answer, "I was with a friend." One of them would get annoyed and begin yelling bullshit statements before something was pushed—be it a chair, table, or me—and then I was the object of their frustrations. It wasn't long before I was punched on the cheek, followed by a hand fisting in my hair.

But what I hadn't counted on was Seifer running in the house and pushing my parents back. The blonde was fuming, his face white with anger and his hands in shaking fists at his side. He towered down my parents, who glared up at him through alcohol-dazed eyes. He slowly backed away, taking several deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. He didn't turn his back on them as he carefully helped me stand up, though I brushed off his hands and stood on my own as best I could.

It was just as I began walking out that my parents had decided to act again. Falling into a steady stream of curses and profanities, the two stepped forward, their eyes rage-filled and their fists shaking in front of Seifer and I. It was only a matter of seconds that their fists collided with my skin.

In an instant, Seifer was in front of me, his arms swinging and eyes blazing. He quickly managed to get them on the other side of the room. He spoke to them, though he said the words just quiet enough that I couldn't hear it, and my parents quickly paled and they quit attempting to get past him to get to me.

He turned quickly and walked towards me, grabbing my bag that had fallen only moments before and placing a hand on my shoulder blades, steering me outside of the house and onto the sidewalk.

He pulled his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. His knuckles, I noticed, were red and bruising. He steered me towards the sandlot, shoving me against the Struggle garage, where he deposited my bag and hit the nearest wall, giving a yell of anger while he did so.

"Okay," he said shakily, his eyes clenched shut. "Adrenaline rush—okay. Wow, it's been a while since I've had to deal with that." He paused, his blue eyes opening and swinging to face me. "You've had to deal with their drunk-asses for _how long_, now?" he asked, but didn't pause long enough to let me answer. " Don't answer. It doesn't matter. You're not going back there. I'd rather you be homeless in a moldy alleyway than you go back there. I'll—I'll get you a bed and you can have my spare room. I just have to clean it out…."

I watched him as he slowly calmed down. I didn't say anything. Instead, I cautiously walked beside him and took his now-bleeding knuckles in my own hands. He looked at me shortly, his eyes still blazing, his body still shaking, and when his eyes met mine he appeared to have lost any sense of annoyance towards me that so often we shared.

He took a deep breath. "You're not staying there anymore," he repeated. "I'll get you a bed and—"

"I'm going to stay with Roxas," I said.

His blue eyes stared into mine before he said, "Are you serious?"

I glared at the blonde. "Yes," I told him defiantly. "I'll probably be over with you more than him, but he's my best friend. I'm staying with him."

"Have you even told that idiot about this?" he countered, steadily getting more frustrated.

"_Don't_ call him an idiot," I hissed. "And I'm _going to_ the next time I see him. Just like I'm going to explain to him what's been going on for two weeks."

He narrowed his eyes and took a step towards me. "And what's been going on for two weeks?" he said, his voice low and rough.

"You've been taking care of me," I relayed. Taking a step back as he took another one forward, I found myself against the wall of the garage again. "I've been staying at your house and you've been patching me up."

Seifer took another step forward and he was suddenly close enough that I could see every detail of his face: his porcelain skin, still pale with residual anger; his blonde hair falling into his eyes; his eyes so bright they seemed almost feverish; his lips thin with emotion. He brought his eyes to meet mine and placed another foot in front of the other, now only a few inches away from me.

I winced as he brought a hand up to my face, my eyes shut tight when he pressed his hand lightly under my jaw. He moved closer still, until eventually our chests bumped together. I could feel his heartbeat racing inside his body, much like my own heart was inside mine. Slowly opening my eyes, I saw his face only inches from mine.

The expression he wore on his face was one I wouldn't have expected someone like Seifer to ever wear. He looked fearful, scared almost. His eyes were wide and his skin was pale. If a look could speak, it would've screamed _What am I supposed to do? What am I doing?_

His hand found its way into my hair, gently tangling around the wavy strands. His hands were still shaking—less obvious than before, but still clear if you could see or feel them. I focused my own eyes on his. He was raking over my appearance, his eyes studying my every feature.

Slowly, he leaned forward. His forehead pressed against mine, his hair itching slightly against my forehead.

"Seifer," I said quietly, my own voice quivering slightly, "what's wrong?"

He pulled his eyelids open to look into my own eyes. He laughed, a very confused, distraught sound. "You just had to be the dick who got hit by your folks," he said. He chuckled again. "It figures I'd be the one to get tangled up in it."

He continued laughing though he didn't pull away from me. The sound seemed manic, as if he'd finally reached the end of any normal emotion and had reached the point of "I don't care anymore". He laughed until his breathing came in short gasps, but he didn't stop. Instead, he placed his other arm above my head.

As I watched him, I closely focused on his face. His eyes were crinkled with his laughter, though liquid was pooling in them as well. His gasping breaths intensified and he began having difficulty breathing through the maniacal laughter.

I acted primarily on impulse, though the feelings had been inside me for longer than I'd willingly admit. Looking in his eyes, I reached my face upwards and pressed my lips to his. He stopped laughing at once and the hand he had wrapped in my hair moved downwards to my waist, his own lips caressing mine softly.

Trying to keep a calm mind and failing, I closed my eyes and relaxed into the kiss. Seifer's lips were soft and gentle, his hands kind and warm through my clothes. He moved his lips against mine as if he thought I would break.

I could _feel_ him regain his thoughts after only a small number of seconds and he pulled away, his gaze holding mine. He looked around and, once making sure no one was in the area, he grabbed my wrist and began running, dragging me behind him.

He led me to his house where he shut and locked the door behind us. His eyes met mine once more, fire burning in his blue eyes again, and he pressed his lips against mine. The kiss was different this time. No longer was it soft and gentle; it was hungry and desperate. He ran his hands along my ribcage and waist, finally settling on my hips and pulling me closer to him.

I went along with him, no longer able to deny my own emotions. I pulled his hat off, running my fingers through his hair, reveling in the silkiness of each strand. He pulled away from my lips to attack my neck, kissing and biting along it and my collarbone. His hands had inched towards the hem of my shirt, cautiously inching it further and further up my torso, until I obeyed and allowed him to pull it off completely. His hands were warm against my sides and chest as I did the same to him, pulling his own jacket off and unzipping his shirt, placing my own hands on his body.

We somehow managed to navigate our way towards his bedroom, where he pushed me onto his bed and fell on top of me, his teeth grazing my sides, slowly making his way upwards to my chest, my collarbone, and then finally my lips, catching my lower lip in his mouth and nipping it roughly.

His hands softly traced along my stomach, slowly tracing a vertical line from the base of my throat to my naval, then gently wrapping around the waistband of my jeans. I found it difficult to breathe, pulling away from his lips to gasp for air as he did the same, kicking his shoes off and wrapping my legs around his waist. He quickly returned to my lips, however, pressing his lips back onto mine desperately.

I seized the small chance when he was relatively still to push him off of me and rolled on top of him, our positions reversed as I was now lying on top of him. He grinned up at me before I caught his lips in mine again, taking his lip in my own teeth and sucking on it teasingly. I released it moments later, moving my hands to his arms and ran my mouth across his neck, tracing my tongue on the shell of his ear and taking his earlobe in between my teeth. That elicited a moan from the blonde, and I found myself grinning at the sound.

He quickly reached his hands onto my waist, pulling me back down so that he could push his lips against my own again. His thumbs traced circles on my hips as he bent forward, pulling me closer to his body at the same time, until we were no longer separated.

Seifer's hands efficiently reached around my waist, turning us over once more so he was again on top. He lifted his lips from my own and took several deep breaths, his lips partially open and resting on my shoulder. His lips became soft again as he pressed small, open-mouthed kisses against my shoulder, slowly making his way back to my mouth. He lost his fervor, both of us finally calming down. Seifer rolled onto his side, turning me on my side as well so our bodies were still compacted together, and he continued pressing his lips to mine, softly and gently and calmly.

When he pulled away, he pulled my head down with his to rest on his pillow. Moving his arms to circle around my waist, he pulled me ever closer and shut his eyes, his breathing evening out and his face relaxing.

I watched him closely, placing one last kiss to his lips before closing my own eyes and falling into a peaceful sleep in his arms.

My last thought I would remember afterwards was something along the lines of, "Whoa, Seifer actually's got a real sensitive side."

* * *

When consciousness rolled back over me, it took me only a few seconds to realize where I was. Still in the arms of Seifer, I looked at the blonde and couldn't help the smirk that formed on my lips when I saw his peaceful expression. Slowly, I tried to get out of his embrace, my only thought to not wake him up.

It didn't work, though. When I finally managed to wiggle myself free, the blonde grimaced, opening one where and glaring at me. "It's ten-thirty," he mumbled, his voice rough. "Where are you going?"

I scowled at the blonde when he wrapped his arms back around my torso. He closed his eyes again and rested his head against my own, a smirk sitting on his face when I tried to get free but failed.

"I was going to talk to Roxas," I murmured.

He opened his blue eyes lazily, his smirk fading into a frown. "You can talk to him tomorrow. Right now you're sleeping," he ordered.

"I'll be back in the morning," I said.

Groaning, he moved his arms from around me and rolled over, giving me a full view of his back. I sat up and leaned over his shoulder, earning me a grunt. "Bring food when you come back," he mumbled.

Laughing, I nodded. Sitting back up completely, I glanced around the blonde's bedroom. I stood and walked to his closet and took out a shirt, pulling it over my head. Suddenly Seifer chuckled, and I turned to look at him.

"What?" I asked him.

He grinned. "You have hickeys everywhere," he said, grinning.

I pulled the shirt off, looking down at my chest to see a dozen or so bruising bite marks scattered over my skin. I looked over and glared at the blonde, who got up and walked towards me. He stopped inches away from me and rested his arms on my shoulders. "What are you going to tell that chicken wuss about?"

I looked at the blonde and frowned. "My family," I said quietly. "The… physical abuse part of it."

His eyes shifted from amusement to worry. "Are you going to mention me?" he asked.

I looked down at his chest, not trusting myself to look in his eyes. "I don't know yet. I'm going to tell him you know about them, but otherwise…."

He kissed my lips chastely, and when I looked up there was a smirk on his face. "Tell him whatever you want," he murmured. He grabbed the shirt from my hands and put it on over my head. He grinned at me before walking back to his bed and pulling the blankets over his head.

* * *

I saw Roxas only minutes after leaving Seifer's house. I followed him to his house. I told him about my family, and briefly mentioned Seifer.

I tried to hold in my emotions when I told him about my potential feelings for Seifer, but I failed. I couldn't help the feeling of helplessness towards the blonde that encompassed me, knowing he dealt with abuse too but didn't have anyone to help him through it like I had him. The way that he had kissed me and handled me seemed like someone who'd spent too long alone and wanted more than anything to have contact with another person. Yet his touch had been gentle, his kiss sweet when we'd woken up. His eyes had been kind and warm.

I fell asleep in Roxas's arms after finally releasing the pent up emotions I'd kept for years about my parents, as well as the emotions I'd felt regarding Seifer. Did I love him? I didn't know. But at the same time, I didn't know if I wanted even my best friend to know about the relationship between the blonde and I, if it could even be called a relationship.

I didn't wake back up until Axel yelled in the living room, announcing his arrival in the form of screaming Cloud's surname. Roxas shot up, his eyes wide and alarmed before realizing it was only Axel, and then he grinned and dragged me out with him, telling me we had a visitor.

And then Riku and Sora came in, and after our hello's, it was revealed that the homeless man, Leon, was in fact Sora's older brother. After he and Riku argued and Sora dragged Leon out of the house, the remaining patrons watched in shock at the door and Riku, who was on the verge of yelling. Cloud immediately put his hands on the silver haired man's shoulders, looking into his eyes and telling him to calm down. Demyx whirled Zexion around and demanded information in his typical, relatively calming way. Roxas looked at Axel and shrugged, and then the two turned to me.

I looked at Roxas and opened my mouth. "I have to go," I said, my eyes wide. "I need to…." I trailed off, hoping Roxas would understand.

Sure enough, Roxas grinned and nodded. "It's fine," he told me. "Just don't forget your shoes, and talk to me later, okay?"

I looked at him with a smile. "I'll try. If I don't, I will tomorrow."

He shrugged and turned towards Axel. I walked as quickly as I could towards Roxas's room and slipped my shoes on, then left through his window, not bothering to go back through the house. I ran the second I was out towards Seifer's house, entering his front door as soon as I was there.

I did, however, slow down once I reached his bedroom. Not knowing if he was still sleeping or not, I slowly eased his door open. He was lying on his back in bed, one arm draped over his face, as if trying to block the rising sun's light from his eyes.

I quietly took my shoes off and slipped under the covers next to Seifer. He stirred slightly, one eye opening groggily. A tired smile graced his lips as he pulled me close.

"Where's my food?" he asked drowsily.

I shrugged, knowing he'd feel it even if he couldn't see it. I murmured, "I forgot. But guess what happened this morning!"

He winced, opening both eyes fully. He looked over my shoulder and frowned. "It's only eight, Hayner. Shut the hell up or quiet down."

Rolling my eyes, I ignored him. "There's this homeless guy, right? He was in the Usual Spot day before yesterday or something, and he's been staying in Roxas's living room. Well, this morning Axel ran in with Sora and Riku, and guess what," I said quickly.

The blonde glowered at me, frowning deeply. "Can't you just go to sleep and tell me in the morning?" he complained, squeezing his eyes shut.

"It _is_ morning," I said.

He raised his eyebrows, as if saying _Does it look like I care?_

I ignored his response and told him, "Leon is Sora's _brother_."

The blonde looked at me with disbelieving eyes. He shook his head. "You said he's bigger than Cloud? And more serious than anyone you've ever met?" he asked.

"He takes Cloud's seriousness to a whole new level," I said.

"I don't believe you," he said simply. "Sora is innocent. He's like a big eight year old. I still find it shocking that he's dating _Riku_, of all people."

I laughed. "Yeah, but I'm serious. And Riku was about to kill Leon, too. I mean, obviously he wasn't going to _kill_ him, but he was pissed."

Seifer laughed. "I need to meet this Leon," he said. "Bring him over here, will you?" he asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Why don't you go meet him yourself?"

"Because that defeats the purpose of you already knowing him. You could introduce us," he said.

"Tough," I said. "You're not helpless."

He groaned, pulling one of his arms back over his eyes. Grinning, I told him, "Sora dragged Leon out to talk before I left. They haven't seen each other in seven years, I think. They're going to be gone for a while if you want to meet them."

Raising an eyebrow, Seifer glanced at me and smiled mischievously. "Or we could spend today right here," he murmured, his lips meeting mine. I could feel the smile he wore and I couldn't resist the moan in the back of my throat. Seifer's smile turned into a grin as he lifted the hem of the shirt I was wearing, rolling over just enough that he was, again, on top of me.

* * *

A/N:

Okay, yeah, I give all of you permission to shank me because I spent almost a month without updating and I'm pretty positive I promised I would like a weekend after I posted the last chapter. But I have good reason for not updating, I swear! It's the second month of school and I've been working my ass off for four of my six classes. (The other two don't count because they're complete BS/busy work classes.) Not to mention I've been trying to set up my schedule for next year so I can graduate a year early. (I'm a sophomore right now and if I manage to take enough online classes this year, I can take my tested classes next year and pass. However that still translates into passing my six classes this year along with three online classes, study for my ACT and driver's licence, and look for a job. Holy shit school is crazy.)

But as for the chapter: Seiner is a favourite of mine. I love Hayner and Seifer and how they interact with each other, and I knew I wanted them in my fic, but I didn't realize just how difficult they are to write realistically.** I extremely sincerely apologize for how out-of-character they are**. I hope I'll get the hang of them later on! Likewise, I'm extremely sorry for probably completely being one of those people who tries to act like I know how something horrible to experience is and trying to write it. It really is one of my biggest pet peeves. But I knew I wanted Hayner and Seifer both to come from abusive backgrounds, and I tried to make it... not shitty in the sense of writing it goes. Does that make sense? Like, I wanted it shitty as far as how the characters live, but I wanted it accurate to how real people live in abusive homes. I probably miraculously failed on both accounts, and I apologize!

And finally, I just want to say that the only reason I now have a PS3 is for KH1.5, however I'm unable to get the game until at least next week.

Reviews are appreciated, as always!


	7. 7) Sora

Seeing Squall in Cloud's living room was probably, easily the last thing I expected to happen when I went to visit. Having to watch Squall and Riku fight over me was something I didn't want to see happen. Having Cloud step in just before Riku started throwing punches was the thing I was most grateful to have happened. Riku leaving Squall and I alone to talk was the best thing.

"Squall, where did you go?" I asked my brother. There was a part of me that didn't even want to know the answer, but it was the question that rolled in my mind more than anything else I'd wondered when I thought of him.

He took several seconds to answer. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he thought it over. Finally, he uttered out, "I went everywhere. I got rides from truckers and I think I've been in over thirty different places and met even more people."

I frowned, trying to think of a way to rephrase my original question. "But you haven't lived anywhere?"

He shook his head. "No," he answered. "I've _technically_ been homeless."

"Why didn't you ever come home?" I said. Hearing the quiver in my voice, I narrowed my eyes and quickly looked down at my hands.

Squall sighed. I didn't look up at his face due to the fact that I knew what I would see: his '_I don't want to hurt you_' face. After almost a minute of silence, he admitted, "I was too stubborn."

"'_Stubborn'_?" I repeated. "Squall, you disappeared _overnight_. Mom and Dad figured you wouldn't answer in at least a month, but when you were gone for a year and you still didn't try and contact them, they started thinking you'd gotten abducted or something. There are Missing posters tacked up all over home!" I told him, finally bringing my face up to look at him.

"I didn't think they cared," he murmured. "They told me to get out, so I did."

"They thought you were _dead_, but there was no evidence of your body ever turning up. Every month they stick up new posters and ask everyone they meet if they've seen you."

I saw him flinch from the corner of my eye and I took a deep breath, centering myself. Before I could say anything, he begged, "Can we please change the subject?"

I nodded hesitantly. After a few seconds, Squall glanced at me sideways. "So how'd you meet Riku? He seems like a nice guy."

Smacking him on the arm, I laughed, grinning finally. "He _is_ a nice guy," I told him honestly. "He just doesn't do well with people who wrong people he cares about."

Ignoring that statement, Squall said, "Well, how did you two meet?"

I smiled. "When I moved out of Mom and Dad's, I got a house on Destiny Islands. After I turned nineteen, this guy pops up on my doorstep and asks if I can spare a room for him to sleep in. He hasn't really left since, except to come back here and check in with Cloud and them."

"How old is he?" he asked me, an eyebrow raising.

"He's two years older than me," I said. "He's been living with me over on the Islands since then. I've been coming over here with him every two or three months to visit everyone. We usually stay for about a week, unless there's something we have to do over here or over there, then we either stay longer or we have to leave."

Squall nodded, his eyes returning to face ahead. I looked down at my hands. "You don't have any problems with me dating another guy?" I asked hesitantly.

To my shock, Squall laughed, a hearty, bellowing sound. "Do _I_ have any problems with you dating a guy? Of course not," he answered. "Why do you think I was kicked out in the first place? It wasn't because they were jealous of my roguish good looks," he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes, deciding to ignore his sarcasm. "I just—you were always ridiculously overprotective of me. Now that you've met Riku and he's equally as protective of me as you were, I thought you would have some problem."

"Nah," he said, a grin on his face. "Besides, I can understand where his protectiveness comes from. He knows I've done shit to hurt you. He doesn't want to see that happen again." He paused for a few minutes, his eyebrows pulling together. "It _won't_ happen again, Sora."

Squall's eyes looked towards mine and I offered him a bright smile. "You'd get along well with him," I said positively, "even if he hates you right now. You're too similar to not like each other. Of course, being as similar as you two are, it could be a recipe for disaster; you two have the same stubbornness in you!"

I met his eyes again and he smirked. He interrupted me, saying, "So what's up with Roxas?"

"What do you mean?" I asked confusedly.

He shrugged. "He's, what sixteen?"

"Fifteen," I corrected him. He rolled his eyes.

"He's fifteen and his dad is thirty-two. Axel said something about Roxas only living here for five years. What's up with them?"

I looked sideways at him, my smile fading into a small frown. "Roxas came here when he was ten. His mom—her name was Aerith, I think—and Cloud, you know… _conceived_ him when they were in high school."

"I would've figured that just by how old they were," he muttered. I ignored that.

"Well, five years ago she came to Cloud's house with Roxas. Everything I know is what Riku's told me, so it may not be the whole truth," I said, "but he came to live with Cloud because his mom died."

Seeing Squall's frown, I nudged his arm. "Cloud and Roxas are okay, you know. They're good for each other. Riku says Cloud smiles more than he used to."

"Something Cloud said," Squall said, "he said yesterday morning that he was winging it when it came to being a dad. I guess that makes sense now."

I nodded. "Yeah, Riku said Cloud didn't tell any of them about Roxas until the night he moved in with them. Well, Demyx and Zexion knew. One of his high school friends dropped him off here and stayed the night, or so Riku said. After that he only let Zexion and Demyx and Riku around him. Axel forced himself into their company, but that's only because Cloud doesn't really trust him around most people."

Squall snorted. "I can see why. He said he does that every weekend, running in and waking them up."

"He does," I laughed. "It pisses Zexion off more than it does Cloud, really. Zexion hates Axel. He always has."

"The blonde, Demyx—he said yesterday he's only a few months older than Axel. How old is he?"

I made a face, trying to discreetly count on my fingers the age differences between all of my friends. "Um, Riku and Axel are only a few days apart, so Axel's twenty-four. Demyx is twenty-five and Zexion is twenty-eight…. Cloud is thirty-two, as you already know, and Roxas is fifteen."

Squall nodded, his crinkling with amusement. "Then there's you, and you're twenty-two, and I'm twenty-six."

I grinned at him, bobbing my head up and down. Taking a deep breath, I looked around the area and grabbed Squall's hand again, pulling him with me as I ran onto the tram that was driving past.

He glared at me for a moment before sitting down beside me. Crossing my legs underneath me, I grinned at him with my chin resting on my hands before—

"Olette! Pence!" I yelled, the two in question turning around quickly, wide eyes staring at me.

Quickly crossing the length of the tram, the two tackled me with hugs. "Sora!" Olette exclaimed. "How are you? It's been _three_ _months_ since you've come to visit!"

Smiling, I put a hand on her head, ruffling her bangs. She stuck her tongue out at me but laughed, knocking my hand away. "Riku and I came to visit, as we do," I told them.

"Leon?" Pence questioned, looking at Squall confusedly.

"This is Squall," I told the two, rolling my eyes at him. "He's my brother, who has apparently _completely_ disregarded his birth name, which is Squall, and instead has been going by Leon."

Olette chuckled nervously. "We're sorry about the day before yesterday, in that case," she told him sincerely. "You looked kinda… bad."

Pence nodded, his caramel eyes genuinely apologetic. "Plus, you seemed sketchy."

Squall looked at the two of them and shrugged. "None taken," he said easily. "It'd been a while since I'd showered and you guys had every right to be suspicious."

Pence and Olette smiled, quickly turning around as the tram began slowing to a stop. "Hey, have you seen Hayner anywhere?" she asked, facing me again.

I frowned, shaking my head. "No, but he was at Roxas's house this morning, if you want to head over there and ask!"

She nodded, quickly grabbing Pence's hand and stepping off the tram. "Thank you," she called as we slowly began speeding up. "We'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay!" I nearly yelled at her. Laughing, she turned away and began walking in the direction of Roxas's house.

"So," Squall said quietly. "Do you have any friends on the Islands?"

Turning to face him, I straightened my back and nodded, a smile on my lips. "There's Kairi, Axel's sister. She's considerably less obnoxious than he is, but she's still a girl and therefore still insane. And Riku's brother lives there, too—well, he has three brothers, but only one of them lives there. His name is Kadaj. He's probably certifiably insane," I said seriously.

Squall laughed. "What does he look like?"

Smiling nervously, I shrugged. "They're identical twins, but his eyes are greener than Riku's. Remember Yuffie?" I asked him.

He pretended to shudder. "How could I forget her?"

"Well, remember how she used to pretend to be a cat? She always walked light on her feet and 'stalked her prey'?"

Nodding, he said, "Yeah, but she always did it as a joke and because they reminded her of ninjas."

"Kadaj is like that," I told him, "except he doesn't really do it as a joke. He isn't obsessed with being super ninja-like like Yuffie, but he's similar like that."

"So he's a creepy female Yuffie that looks like Riku?" he asked.

I laughed. "Yeah, exactly," I answered.

He turned to look at the scenery, watching as the tram took us towards the Sandlot, towards the Market Place, and then finally stopping again at the Train Station before it make its way to Sunset Station.

I grabbed Squall's hand, standing up and leading him off of the tram. I led him through the town, talking about everything from Mom and Dad, to Riku, to stories about Cloud and my friends, sometimes having to pause to laugh only to continue and continue laughing.

Squall never interrupted while I spoke, instead butting in his words as I laughed or paused to breathe. He commented mostly on my ability to still talk "a hundred miles a minute" and briefly mentioning a few of his stories from the road.

It would've been boring had I been with anyone else, but I was with Squall, my brother and my best friend. He was laughing and joking with me as if the last seven years had never happened, and the only reason I knew it hadn't all been a bad dream was the length of his hair and the amount he'd grown since he was nineteen. My now twenty-six year old brother looked much larger than he had before due to the muscles now decorating his body, and his eyes were more mature than they'd been before.

I, on the other hand, hadn't changed really at all. I'd gotten taller—I now was able to look into Squall's eyes without requiring the use of standing on my toes—and I'd lost my baby fat, my cheekbones standing out and my arms and legs resembling those of a swimmer: lean and thin but strong.

"Leon?" a voice sounded.

Looking around (and also trying to resist the urge to scream "_His name is Squall_!"), I spotted Hayner walking towards us. Smiling, I waved to him. "Hey Hayner!" I yelled.

Hayner grinned and turned to look over his shoulder, and from the corner emerged Seifer. The latter looked tired, but he wore a smirk on his face—something that definitely didn't seem normal on the teenager's face as it didn't have any sarcastic undertones.

Beside me, Squall waved half-heartedly at the blonde and his friend. Mumbling a quiet hello, I noticed his eyes glance towards Seifer's and recognition flashed in his eyes. However, it was gone before I could properly understand it.

"You never said you were Sora's brother," Hayner was saying, his eyes glittering with amusement.

Beside me, Squall shrugged. "I didn't know he was here." I frowned at him, but he waved me off before I could say anything. "You know I'm—what did you call it, annoyingly impersonal? You know how I am."

Seifer smirked at the two of us, his eyes jumping between mine and Squall's. "I'm Seifer Almasy," he said, holding his hand out towards Squall.

"Leon," Squall replied easily.

"His name is_ Squall_," I interrupted angrily, glaring at my brother.

"And I've been going by Leon for seven years," he snapped.

Facing him, I crossed my arms over my chest. "Seeing as your birth certificate still says 'Squall Leonhart' and you haven't legally or officially changed your name, I'm not calling you '_Leon_'."

An arm on my shoulder ceased our bickering, and I looked over to see Hayner's warm brown eyes grinning. "If you'd have told me yesterday you two were brothers, I wouldn't have believed you, but you two sound like Axel and Reno."

I glanced between Hayner and the older teen, smiling as I shook my head. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I reached my arm around Hayner's shoulders and pulled him away with me, telling Squall and Seifer, "I just need to ask him something!"

Hayner looked at me confusedly, though his eyes seemed guarded. I looked into his with worry before I said, "Are you and him okay with each other?"

He shrugged and gave a forced grin. "Obviously, we are," he said. "We'd be at each other's throats if we weren't."

"Hayner…." I said, frowning. "Roxas always told me you two hated each other. _And_ you're covered in bruises," I whispered, trying to keep Squall from overhearing. "You can't blame me for worrying, can you?"

His false-grin faded and his shoulders sagged. He shook his head before he offered me a small, sad smile. "Seifer didn't do any of this. Don't worry about me," he said easily. "Besides, shouldn't you get back to humoring your brother?"

I rolled my eyes and walked back with him towards Squall and Seifer. The two men were bristled, visibly irritated. Upon our return—though we'd only been a few feet away—Seifer relaxed somewhat, whereas Squall didn't at all. Rolling my eyes at the brunette, I grabbed his arm and towed him along beside me.

"Goodbye, Hayner!" I yelled over my shoulder. Turning my head around enough so he could see the smirk I was wearing, I added, "Take a shower! You smell like sex!"

I didn't look back to see the face that accompanied the choking noises the younger blonde made but I clearly heard Seifer's barking laughter. "Go to hell!" Hayner finally managed, just before I left the Sandlot with Squall.

* * *

**A/N**:

I am _so_ sorry about not updating at all recently, but sadly updates are going to be fewer and farther in between. I got my registration done for my online classes and am going to be working on English III for the next few weeks until I finish it. After that, I have to take one more class and I'm done, and next year I'll be set to graduate.

My schedule (as of right now) is to write on the weekends. During the week, if I've got free time, I'm studying or taking my class. Over breaks (such as Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years break) I'm thinking I won't do school work, to give myself a break, and I'll write instead. I haven't quite decided yet, but regardless. I'm still writing, don't worry! Just... school comes first.

As for the contents of this chapter: I'm sorry it's shorter than the others, and the next two will be about the same size, but I'm trying for longer chapters, I really am. I think after the one I'm working on currently, I'm just going to go in with the mindset of it being a whole new fic because that seems to be when I get the best results as far as lengths go.

Reviews, as always, are appreciated!


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